Paris: In yet another twist in the saga of the former French aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, France is seeking an urgent court order to stop an independent panel of experts from determining the amount of asbestos on board the ship.

A court in the Paris suburb of Versailles is to hand down its decision on Tuesday in what has become a grim fight to the finish between anti-asbestos and environmental groups and the State. The ship, currently on its way to India, is now in the Red Sea, not far from Djibouti.

The tussle between the French authorities and the environmental and public health associations revolves around the exact amount of asbestos on board the ship. The Government claims that there is only 45 tonnes of the toxic substance while the NGOs say there is upwards of 500 tonnes.

On January 11, four anti-asbestos and environmental associations had obtained a court order calling for an assessment by independent experts. Last Friday, the French State filed a suit against Greenpeace, Ban Asbestos and two other anti-asbestos associations. On January 24 the State initiated urgent proceedings to obtain an annulment of the court's earlier decision to name a two-member independent experts' panel.

"This is akin to madness. Why is the State so desperate to prevent an independent experts' enquiry? Obviously, because it has lied and an enquiry would reveal those lies," Yannick Jadot of Greenpeace told The Hindu . "Not only is the State lying, it is also using all its powers to muzzle the courts, to stop the truth from coming out. In India, it is the courts that will decide the fate of the Clemenceau but in France the State is using all legal instruments to prevent democratic institutions from playing their role," he said.

The court in Versailles decided to name a panel after examining documents produced by Technopure, the company that carried out the first stage of asbestos removal, and which has alleged that there is over 500 tonnes of asbestos still left on the ship.

France has still to produce a detailed inventory of where the asbestos was located on the ship as per Indian Supreme Court rules.

A high-level French official earlier this week suggested it was impossible to make an inventory given that the asbestos was built into the structure and therefore impossible to localise.

The absence of such a list on the Clemenceau would be contrary to current French law.

The legislation of January 2, 2002 "relative to the localising of materials and products containing asbestos before demolition" (in application of article 10-4 of decree no 96-97 of February 7, 1996 (modified), calls for a detailed inventory to be made.

The law calls for localising, prior to demolition, all materials and products containing asbestos "incorporated or inseparable from the structure of the building."

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