Julio Godoy
PARIS, Feb 16 2006 (IPS) – The decision by French President Jacques Chirac to withdraw the asbestos-contaminated aircraft carrier Clemenceau from dismantling in India ends an embarrassing journey for the ship, and for the French government.
Chirac announced Wednesday afternoon that on the issue of dismantling ships, which poses questions on a global dimension related to protection of the environment, France must act in the most exemplary way.
Defence minister Michelle Alliot Marie said last week that France was dealing with the matter in an exemplary way in sending the ship to the Indian scrap yard Alang for dismantling.
Chirac s decision came only hours after the French state council, the highest judicial authority, ordered suspension of the Clemenceau s journey to Alang. The council accepted the arguments of Greenpeace, the association of asbestos victims Andeva and other organisations.
The decision came after the Supreme Court of India passed an order earlier banning entry of the ship in Indian waters. Finally an end for a most embarrassing story, the weekly L Express commented.
Chirac is due to visit India next week.
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The French government had continued to deny until a few hours before the announcement on Wednesday that the ship contains high levels of asbestos. Acknowledgement of high asbestos content would mean that under international rules signed by France, the ship could not be exported to a developing country for disposal.
The French government had sold the ship to a Panama-based scrap company for dismantling at Alang. Experts say the ship contains up to 1,000 tonnes of poisonous asbestos, while the French government has said it contains only a fraction of that amount.
The French government has said it had disposed of 115 tonnes of asbestos from the ship. But the defence ministry admitted Tuesday that it had documents only to show removal of 70 tonnes of asbestos, and accused the company which carried out the job of irregularities.
The decontamination ordered by the French government was carried out by amateurs, Michel Parigot, spokesperson for Andeva, a French association of victims of asbestos told IPS. The controller had only 14 hours of training, and the attempt probably spread the asbestos all over the place instead.
The French government has given different figures for the amount of asbestos on the ship, from 215 tonnes in military documents dated 2003, to 270 tonnes in early 2005, and then 115 in January 2006.
Asbestos, a mineral fibre which can be easily inhaled, is known to cause cancer and asbestosis, a fatal lung scarring. It was in common use in construction once for insulation and as a fire retardant. Asbestos has been banned in practically all industrialised countries for at least a decade.
New claims point to high levels of toxic content on the ship. Norwegian specialist Aage Bjorn Andersen has estimated that the Clemenceau still contains some 760 tonnes of asbestos, and between 165 and 330 tonnes of other hazardous material such polychlorinated biphenyls, a chemical compound used in electrical cables which can cause cancer.
The Clemenceau is at present anchored somewhere in the Arabian Sea, and is expected to be brought back to France over the next few weeks.
For anti-asbestos groups such as Greenpeace, Andeva and Ban-Asbestos, the decision to abort the journey to India is a victory.
It is a bi-national victory, French and Indian, Ban-Asbestos spokesperson Annie Thébaud-Mona told IPS. It is very difficult to stop a transfer of risks from the industrialised countries in the North to developing countries in the South, to end these double standards from states and multinational corporations which abuse the South to carry out there what environmental and social legislation does not allow here.
Yannick Jadot of Greenpeace said the decision constitutes a victory of the coalition of organisations working against asbestos, for the defence of fundamental human rights, and the protection of the environment.
France tried to override national and international rules, and failed, Jadot said. Hopefully, its failure in exporting the Clemenceau will establish a precedent which would make it impossible to dismantle polluted, decommissioned ships in other countries..
Jadot said the asbestos in the Clemenceau can be disposed of in France. For one thing, that would prove that the whole affair, of sending it to India, was false.
