3 ms·
The trajectory of the last French air carriers - the Foch and the Clémenceau - is a good illustration of the mess it can be, even for former military flagships.
by aredox 2y ago
The trajectory of the last French air carriers - the Foch and the Clémenceau - is a good illustration of the mess it can be, even for former military flagships.
Those military ships are of course full of asbestos - more than usual - and heavy metals.
The Clémenceau was supposed to be dismantled in Spain, but when the marine nationale saw it being towed to Turkey, they cancelled the contract and got it back.
Then another consortium offered to dismantle it in Alang but with special precautions. The boat left, was blocked by NGOs, was blocked by Egypt when it tried to cross Suez, then India refused to accept it. It came back to France after rounding all of Africa.
It was eventually dismantled in the UK, after a few more protests (the river Tess had to be deepened, and the hull had to be cleaned up of any invasive organism)
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9mant%C3%A8lement_du_porte-avions_Clemenceau https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9mant%C3%A8lement_du_p...
The Foch was sold to Brazil, and after much of the same drama, was eventually sunk in the Atlantic.
- yohannparis 2y agoMerci for sharing this tragic part of French history. I wished budgets on such project included the dismantling of it at the end.
- spicybbq 2y agoAlang is an interesting place to look at in Google maps. Make sure to check the street views. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alang,+Gujarat,+India/@21.403147,72.1853129,6967m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x3be1ef1754ecc115:0x4e05dda2308e9b78!8m2!3d21.3964!4d72.1781317!16zL20vMDMycmYx?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alang,+Gujarat,+India/@21....
- teruakohatu 2y agoVery interesting. I spotted quite a lot of totally enclosed lifeboats along the main street, including what looked like a business selling enclosed lifeboats. I didn't imagine there was a used market for enclosed lifeboats but a google lead me to Alibaba and they go for hundreds to 10s or 1000s of dollars.
- guidoism 2y agoI wonder how different each of the wikipedias are between languages. There's barely any info about the dismantling of the Clémenceau in the English wikipedia. I occasionally read the Spanish language wikipedia for South American history as it is more complete. As a someone fluent in both languages I feel like I have access to more knowledge. How much knowledge is "hidden" in other languages on Wikipedia? Would be cool for translators to copy portions between languages. They must do this already, right?
- aredox 2y agoIt is already the case. I've seen several French Wikipedia articles with a banner warning the content was merely lifted from the English article.
- ornornor 2y agoFor this kind of stuff there is usually much more in the language of origin. I’d suspect the French article have more details on this since it was the French navy.
- eru 2y ago> I wonder how different each of the wikipedias are between languages. > As a someone fluent in both languages I feel like I have access to more knowledge. Computers, like Google Translate, are pretty good these days for something like Wikipedia articles.