She abandoned the unit propulsion system used previously and grouped her boilers forward leading to the reduction to a single funnel.

She served in the Mediterranean Sea after entering service then searched for German surface raiders at the beginning of the war.

Her protection would be an armoured belt 100 mm (3.9 in) thick made of high tensile 80 kilogram (kg) steel.

From the machinery spaces to the end of the after main magazines it was a uniform height of 2.45 metres (8 ft 0 in).

The boiler rooms were all grouped just forwards of amidships reducing the vessel to a single funnel.

Four Rateau-Bretagne single reduction gear steam turbines were fitted reverting to the four shaft arrangement of the Duquesnes.

These would produce 84,000 CV (chevaux or horses) for a designed speed of 31 knots (57 km/h; 36 mph).

A dredger hoist brought the shell and two half charge bags to the breech.

With an elevation only to plus 85 degrees they had a slow rate of fire, 15 to 21 rounds per minute therefore were not effective against modern aircraft when installed.

Algérie, Dupleix, the battleship Strasbourg and the British aircraft carrier Hermes were based in Dakar in French West Africa, while searching for the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee.

In March 1940, after refitting at Toulon, she accompanied the battleship Bretagne to Canada, with 3,000 cases of French gold.

In April, Algérie returned to the Mediterranean and when Italy declared war on France, she helped shell Genoa in June.

After the French defeat in 1940, Algérie remained with the Vichy fleet based at Toulon.

In 1941, her secondary and anti-aircraft weaponry was strengthened and in 1942, she was fitted with the early French-built radar.

When Admiral Lacroix finally arrived, he ordered the ship evacuated; as the Germans were preparing to board, he told them that the cruiser was about to explode.

The remains were bombed and sunk again on 7 March 1944, and were finally raised and broken up for scrap in 1949.