When ???French were defeated a couple of time on the sea.britishIn July 1940, a duel between the British military and French Naval fleet at Mers-el-Kebir ensued. The duel was short-lived and at its end the Bretagne, Mogador, Dunkerque, and Hood, all French ships, were set afire and/or sunk to the bottom of the sea. About 1300 French sailors were killed in this fray.
British
most of them had been sunk or captured by union naval forces
Sunk and scrapped (re-cycled).
Probably. With the number of ships in the invation, there must have been French ships. Therefore, French ships could have very possibly been sunk.
Two french agents
Cinq (as 'sunk').
This is one battle where a ship actually sunk in the naval action.
they were bombed and sunk by the Japanese air force
cinquante (pronounced sunk-aunt)
On July 10, 1985, the French intellegence service DGSE sank the Rainbow Warrior in an operation that was designed to be 'discovered'.
cinquante-trois, pronounced "sunk-annt-troah"