AFP, PARIS, Oct 24 (AFP) – The former flagship of the French navy – the aircaft-carrier Clemenceau – was stuck off the coast of Sicily on Friday as a result of a contractual dispute over asbestos and scrap rights.
Decommissioned in 1997 after 35 years of service, the 33,000-tonne ship was sold to a Spanish company which undertook to tow it for demolition in the port of Gijon in northern Spain, according to the French defence ministry.
However on leaving its Mediterranean base at Toulon, the carrier was seen heading not towards the straits of Gibraltar – and thus to Spain's Atlantic coast – but eastwards towards Turkey.
“There are European conventions on the issue of asbestos removal. A clause in the contract stipulated that the demolition had to take place in Europe and not in Turkey, where there is reason to believe the European rules are not respected,” explained spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau.
“Faced with this flagrant violation of the commitments made by the company, the French government cancelled the contract on Tuesday,” he said.
Instead the government offered the ship to a German firm which plans to break it up in the Greek port of Piraeus, and with negotiations underway between the two companies the Clemenceau was stranded at anchor off the Sicilian coast.
“We had a frigate watching the carrier so we knew right away it had left its planned itinerary. In any case a ship like the Clemenceau does not slip away unobserved,” said a navy spokesman at Toulon.
