"Under the influence of the internationalization of working conditions and globalization, seamen's status under French flag is in full development. To give the French flag competitiveness again, faced with free registration, the successive French governments created new registers based on specificity of the overseas territories legislation. They also created a French international register. These registers have laid to a diversification and a web of social law regulations applicable to seamen. They called into question the principle of the law unity to be applied on board. The social advantages they had benefited from until now were thus greatly called into question in the name of competitiveness which becomes the main criterion taken into account by shipowners. At the same time the European and international authorities intervened to manage the social dumping. These new regulations modified the structure of the French maritime social law. If this law was historically elaborated in a national framework, this situation is past from now on. Despite these reforms, the decline of the French flag hasn't been stopped and the ships practising less exacting social conditions go on sailing along our coasts. To remedy this phenomenon, it appeared that national and community measures would be insufficient. An international agreement was elaborated to create a minimal international status of seamen. Its application and the practice of the port state control should allow at last to move aside the ships which don't respect norms. It should also restore a more loyal competition for seamen under the French flag."--Cover, p. 4