Clemenceau (R98)
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The Clemenceau (ID: R98) was a light aircraft carrier for the French Navy . She was the eighth carrier ship and, like her sister ship , the Foch (identification R-99) , was propelled conventionally. Together they formed the backbone of the French Navy from the 1960s to the 1990s. She was for a battleship of the Richelieu class the second warship to Georges Clemenceau was named. The keel-laying of this first Clemenceau had taken place in 1939, but the ship was no longer completed.
Calls
The Clemenceau was involved in the following operations, among others:
- 1974–1975: Independence from Djibouti , Indian Ocean
- 1980: It is believed that the Clemenceau was involved in the Itavia flight 870 incident.
- 1982–1984: Civil War in Lebanon
- 1987–1988: Iran-Iraq war
- 1990: Second Gulf War
- 1993–1996: War in the former Yugoslavia
Decommissioning and scrapping
The Clemenceau was decommissioned on October 1, 1997 and sold for scrapping in 2003. However, an initiative from four environmental protection organizations, including Greenpeace , delayed the transfer to the ship's scrap yard abroad with a lawsuit, because toxic substances such as mercury , lead and well over 100 tons of carcinogenic asbestos are said to be on board the ship , whose environmentally friendly disposal at the then planned scrapping site is not guaranteed in Turkey . According to official information, there should only be around 45 t of asbestos on board. The French court finally declared that it had no jurisdiction because it was a military matter. Greenpeace then intensified its international campaign. Some activists briefly occupied the ship.
Greenpeace invoked the Basel Convention against Toxic Waste Exports and also wanted to draw attention to the working conditions in Alang in India , where the Clemenceau was now to be scrapped.
On December 31, 2005, the ship, now with the designation Q790 , was towed by a Russian tug and left the port of Toulon heading India. The passage of the towing formation through the Suez Canal only came about after a large amount of money was paid by France to Egypt , as the Egyptian government initially refused to allow passage due to environmental concerns. After the Supreme Court of India had refused entry into Indian territorial waters on February 13, 2006, the ship, which was meanwhile in the Indian Ocean , due to unclear health and environmental hazards, the French Council of State also temporarily prohibited its scrapping. On February 15, President Jacques Chirac ordered the Clemenceau to return to France. The ship arrived in Brest on May 15th . A new report should now clarify which toxins and in which quantities are present on board.
In July 2008 it was confirmed that the Clemenceau is to be scrapped in Hartlepool, England , where it arrived on February 8, 2009. By January 2010, the ship was completely wrecked.
Schematic representation
Front view
100 mm gun
See also
Web links
- Porte-avions Clemenceau (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ David and Hugh Lyon; Siegfried Greiner: Warships from 1900 to today, technology and use . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft, Cologne 1979, p. 79 .
- ↑ google.com/hostednews/afp ( Memento from July 31, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Lindsay Bruce: Ghostship work ends at Hartlepool dock . In: Evening Gazette , January 24, 2011; Retrieved February 13, 2011