The ‘Le Clemenceau’ Controversy

On February 15, 2006, the French President Mr. Jacques Chirac ordered ‘Le Clemenceau’, the decommissioned warship that was en route to India for dismantling, back to France. Environmental activists were jubilant as they hailed the French President’s decision as evidence of the effectiveness of their campaign against the warship being brought to India.

Le Clemenceau, once the pride of the French fleet, was retired from its services by the French government in the year 1997. Generally a sailing vessel used for any purpose, be it commercial or defense, offered a service life of approximately 23 years, after which it was considered unsafe for sailing purpose and was dismantled.

Since 1997, Clemenceau lay anchored off the French coast, as the French authorities could not find a bidder to purchase and dismantle the carrier. The huge quantities of toxic material, especially asbestos, present aboard the ship was one of the primary reasons why many nations resisted allowing the ship into their territory for dismantling.

It was reported that Turkey (in October 2003) and Greece (in November 2003) had refused a proposal to purchase and scrap the ship due to the huge quantities of asbestos and PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) present in the ship.

In 2004, the Ship Decommissioning Industry Corporation (SDIC), a French decommissioning firm, struck a deal with Shriram Vessels and Scrap Pvt. Ltd., a ship breaking company based in India to dismantle Le Clemenceau. The cost of the deal was estimated at €100,000. The ship was scheduled to be brought to a port located in Alang, Gujarat. The Alang port is one of the largest ship dismantling centers in the world.

But there were concerns that massive quantities of toxic asbestos present in the ship created a serious threat to the health of port workers employed in dismantling process and also the surrounding aquatic life. This urged Greenpeace, an international environmental activist organization and several trade unions in India to protest against arrival of Le Clemenceau in Indian waters.

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