Furnishings were designed by painter Albert Besnard and architect Pierre Patout (one of the founders of the Art Deco style.

[1] Decorations were largely made of glass, marble, and various woods, making for a more subdued atmosphere than on CGT ships such as Ile de France.

[1][4] Her size, speed and luxury exceeded the level of demand between Europe and South America, and she was seldom fully booked.

[1] On 4 January 1933, while traveling between Bordeaux and Le Havre to be dry docked and repaired, the ship caught fire about 25 miles (40 km) off Guernsey.

[8] Another states that the Dutch steamship Achilles rescued the last crew to leave the ship, including men who were in the water.

[4] Another account states that Thomas Henry Willmott, of Sunderland, first officer of the collier Ford Castle, was in charge of a lifeboat which went alongside the burning liner at considerable risk to pick up survivors that had been missed by other rescuing ships.

For this the French Ministry of Merchant Marine awarded him the Medaille de Sauvetage and the owners of the L'Atlantique presented him with a gold watch.

[8] The New York Times claimed that on 5 January the French Ministry of Marine issued a statement saying the ship was considered a total loss.

[8] The fire had gutted her accommodation from A to F deck and her plates were buckled above the waterline, but her engines and boiler rooms were relatively undamaged.

[11] In February 1936 L'Atlantique was sold for scrap and towed to Port Glasgow, where the company of Smith and Houston[4] started breaking her up in March.

[2] Her owners used her insurance settlement to order a smaller but faster replacement ship, Pasteur,[11] which was launched in 1938 and completed in 1939.

In May 1932 Messageries Maritimes' motor ship Georges Philippar had burned and sunk on her maiden voyage with the loss of 54 lives.

[14] And in February 1942 CGT's flagship Normandie caught fire and capsized in New York while being converted into a troop ship.