On February 22, two associations - Ban Asbestos-France and ANDEVA (National Association for the Defense of Asbestos Victims) - obtained of the French tribunal of Paris an official “ordonnance” authorizing them to introduce a specific claim - “référé” – against the Ministry of Economy, the “Préfet” of Paris and the company SDI (Ship Decommissioning Industry Corporation), in order to denounce the contract which has been established between the French State and the company SDI. The contract is planning to send the Clemenceau in India in March 2005 for asbestos removal and demolition.

Such export of more than 20 tons of asbestos waste contained in the ship is illegal in regard of the Basel Convention and of French and Indian regulations.

The judgment will be pronounced on the 10th of March 2005 in Paris. The impact of such a juddgement is going strongly beyond the only case of the aircraft-carrier “Clemenceau”, because of the number of military and private old ships containing asbestos. Considering the bad conditions of work in the Asian shipyards, the political decision taken by the French government to send such ships to India or other countries means to condemn workers to suffer asbestose diseases and death. Unfortunately, today, thousands of French shipyard’s workers contaminated by asbestos died or became sick. A lot of them got compensation from the French fund of compensation for asbestos victims. 

To read:

• the text of the Ban Asbesto-France press release
• a paper from IMC India
• on Shipbreaking in Asia