The gigantic aircraft carrier Clemenceau, once a proud symbol of France's naval might, returned to home port in Brest yesterday after failing to find a foreign country willing to dismantle its asbestos-contaminated hull.
The ship entered the Brest Channel shortly before 7:30am and headed towards the Breton naval base in northwestern France, after a lengthy and controversial journey under tow to India and back.
Asbestos
The French authorities must now decide how and where to get it dismantled, after conducting tests to determine exactly how much asbestos -- a carcinogenic substance extensively used in construction and boat-building prior to the 1970s -- remains in its structure.
The Clemenceau was due to dock at around 9am at the same berth in the Brest port that it had occupied in 1961, when it began its 36 years of service with the navy.
Around 40 people turned out to watch the 27,000-tonne ship as it passed the lighthouse at the entrance to the Brest Channel, including one of the metalworkers who had helped build it.
The Clemenceau's return to Brest marks the latest stage in an embarrassing saga that began in 2003, when the hull of the decommissioned vessel was sold to a Spanish company.
The buyer had agreed to remove the asbestos from the ship within the EU. But when it started towing the Clemenceau to a breakers' yard in Turkey, a nation with lower health and safety standards than those of the EU, France cancelled the deal.
Indian odyssey
Last year Paris tried to send the Clemenceau to India for demolition, but the Egyptian authorities prevented its passage through the Suez Canal on safety grounds.
After Cairo relented, it was the turn of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to demand an explanation for the ship's despatch to India.
In February, the Indian High Court banned the Clemenceau from entering the country's territorial waters and French President Jacques Chirac ordered the infamous vessel back home.
The Clemenceau, 266m long and 51m wide, saw action in the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s and the first Gulf war of 1991.
Following its decommissioning in 1997, the ship, named after World War I prime minister Georges Clemenceau, is now known officially and unromantically as "Hull Q790."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese