The Foch aircraft carrier will soon sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Passed under the Brazilian flag in 2000, the old building, flagship of the French navy, will be sunk due to the deterioration of its hull, announced Wednesday, February 1, the Brazilian authorities.

An "environmental crime" according to NGOs.

Qualified as a "toxic package of 30,000 tonnes" by the Robin des Bois association, the old hull, 266 meters long, is filled with asbestos, paints and other toxic waste, according to several environmental defense organisations.

But the Brazilian navy considered that there was no other choice given its very degraded state and that "a spontaneous sinking" of the hull was inevitable in the long term.

"Abandon the hull by sinking it in a controlled manner"

"Faced with the risks involved in towing and because of the deterioration of the hull (...), the only solution is to abandon the hull by sinking it in a controlled manner", explained the navy late Wednesday in a press release. joint with the Brazilian Ministry of Defence.

An area some 350 km off the Brazilian coast, 5,000 meters deep, was considered "the safest" for the scuttling, the statement said.

Two weeks ago, the navy announced that it had taken the former aircraft carrier in tow in the Atlantic.

It was previously towed by a Dutch tug for the Turkish shipyard Sok Denizcilik. 

The navy had specified that in view of its state of degradation and "the high risk" it represented for the environment, it would not authorize its return to a port or to Brazilian territorial waters.

Several NGOs then expressed their fear of seeing Brazil commit an “environmental crime”.

"The Brazilian Navy should be condemned for negligence. If they sink this highly toxic vessel in the middle of the Atlantic, they will violate three international environmental treaties for no good reason," accused Jim Puckett, director of the Basel Action Network (BAN ).

The federal prosecutor's office had asked the court to prohibit the navy from sinking it, but this request was rejected on Wednesday by a court in the state of Pernambuco (northeast).

Scrap

The saga of the former flagship of the navy, which notably participated in NATO air operations against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, during the Kosovo crisis, recalls that of its sister ship, the Clemenceau.

The latter was deconstructed in 2010 in the United Kingdom after being banned in India following a heated controversy over the presence of asbestos on board.

Built in the late 1950s in the Saint-Nazaire shipyard in western France, the Foch was in service with the French Navy for 37 years.

The ship, capable of catapulting 12 to 15 tonne aircraft at a take-off speed of 150 knots, was purchased in 2000 by Brazil, which renamed it Sao Paulo.

But due to its dilapidation and a series of problems linked in particular to a fire in 2005, and when its modernization would have cost too much, Brasilia decided to get rid of it. 

The Sok Denizcilik shipyard bought her for scrap in April 2021 but threatened to abandon her because they couldn't find a port to receive her.

In June 2022, she obtained authorization from the Brazilian authorities to ferry her to Turkey for dismantling.

Dangerous waste 

But when he is at the end of August at the level of the Strait of Gibraltar, the Turkish environmental authorities let it be known that he is no longer welcome.

Brazil made him turn around but without authorizing him to dock despite the finding of "aggravation of damage" to the hull.

On January 19, the Dutch tugboat ALP Guard operating on behalf of the yard began to move away from the Brazilian coast, after having spent several months off Pernambuco.

But a court decision prohibited him from sailing in international waters without prior authorization from the Brazilian authorities.

This is the reason why the Brazilian public environmental agency Ibama, responsible in Brazil for the application of the Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, ended up requesting an intervention from the Brazilian Navy. 

With AFP

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