France filed paperwork with the in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids to meet a deadline for avoiding loss of rights to the ship a spokesman for the French embassy in Washington said.

Legal battle
France's claim escalates a legal battle over who owns and has authority to retrieve artifacts from the long-lost vessel. The claim is based on documents showing the fatal expedition was undertaken on behalf of the French crown and was not a private venture, the spokesman said.

The State of Michigan also is seeking title, although state officials have raised doubts about whether the Griffin's gravesite actually has been found. They say federal law gives the state ownership of abandoned vessels embedded in its Great Lakes bottomlands.

Matt Frendewey, spokesman for the Michigan attorney general's office, said state officials were reviewing the French court filing and would respond later.

Meanwhile a private group, Great Lakes Exploration LLC, who located what it contends to be the Griffin's wreckage in 2001 wants to be appointed custodian until the courts determine ownership and salvage rights.

Steve Libert, spokesman for Great Lakes Exploration, backs the French claim. "Michigan isn't fighting just me any more. They're fighting the country of France. I would still love to do it on a cooperative basis with the state of Michigan and I'm perplexed as to why they are resisting," he said.

In a motion filed last month, Michigan asked federal judge Robert Holmes Bell to declare the wreckage - if it exists - state property. Assistant Attorney General Louis Reinwasser said divers visited the site in October and found only a timber protruding from the lake bottom.

Secret location
The precise site has not been publicly revealed, but is believed to be between Escanaba and the St. Martin Islands, near Wisconsin.

Ken Vrana, director of the Lansing-based Maritime Center, said a sonar examination of the site in 2006 detected numerous artifacts on the bottom and embedded in sediments.

His nonprofit scientific and educational organization is working on plans for a remote sensing expedition this summer in hopes of identifying the artifacts. France's director of underwater archaeology has endorsed the mission.