Legal challenge to French warship dismantling in Britain

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — Environmental campaigners said Wednesday they would go to the courts in a bid to stop an asbestos-contaminated French aircraft carrier from being broken up in Britain.

The 32,700-tonne Clemenceau, once the pride of the French navy, has spent the past five years being moved around the globe as officials tried to find a final resting place for the vessel, which contains 700 tonnes of asbestos.

The 51-year-old vessel was towed to India in a failed bid to have it dismantled there before it was announced in July that she will be scrapped by British company Able UK in Hartlepool, northeast England, after it was granted a waste management licence by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Campaigner Iris Ryder said the Friends of Hartlepool group had...