Le transport fluvial, un mode très ancien devenu moderne

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Inland shipping is, with the horse and the donkey. the oldest transport mode used by mankind. But, unlike these animals, its evolution has been important. Its modern form - large-scale ships carrying 3000 to 5000 tonnes of cargo - can bring an important contribution to contemporary economy. The French waterway network was the best in Europe at the beginning of the XX^th century, but France is now late in that evolution and has no reallarge-scale network at the present time, unlike Germany, where inland shipping represents 20 % of the traffic. This situation is all the more regrettable since inland shipping is the least polluting, the most energy saving, the most silent and the safest of all transport modes.