French government forced to recall ship laden with toxic waste

French President Jacques Chirac intervened personally on February 15 to order the ship’s recall to France, just days before he was to begin an official visit to India aimed at securing a series of commercial and arms deals with New Delhi. The large amount of toxic asbestos waste still on board the Clemenceau has been the subject of litigation in France and India, and the controversy was threatening to overshadow and undermine Chirac’s February 19-20 visit to India.

The Indian Supreme Court’s decision on February 13 to forbid entry of the Clemenceau into India’s waters pending further study was followed almost immediately by a decision of the French Council of State to stop the ship’s transfer to India. In its ruling, France’s highest legal body said “there is an urgency to suspend the decisions [to export the ship] which present a serious and immediate harmful risk to the protection of the environment and public health that the plaintiff associations intend to defend.”

The Council ordered the French state to pay 1,500 euros to Greenpeace and the Association of Asbestos Victims, which had brought the legal action. Its decision constituted a finding that the government had indeed contravened the International Basle Convention on the export of toxic wastes. Up to this point, the Ministry of Defence had insisted that the convention did not apply in the case of the Clemenceau because it was not a merchant ship but a warship, albeit one that had been decommissioned in 1997.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/ship-f22.shtml