Here is a timeline of the embarrassing saga:

1961: The 27,000-tonne Clemenceau enters service as one of the country's two aircraft carriers. It is named after Georges Clemenceau, who led France in the final years of World War I.

Asbestos, an insulating material which was not known at the time to be carcinogenic, is widely used in its construction.

1997: The vessel is decommissioned after 36 years of service, which included action during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s and the first Gulf War in 1991.

2000: The Clemenceau's sister ship, the Foch, is also decommissioned, then sold to the Brazilian navy, which is still operating it under the name Sao Paolo.

2001: The Charles de Gaulle, a nuclear-powered vessel, comes into service as France's sole aircraft carrier.

2003: The hull of the Clemenceau is sold to a Spanish company, which undertakes to remove the asbestos within the bounds of the European Union. However France cancels the deal after the buyer begins towing it towards a Turkish shipbreakers' yard.

2004: The navy signs a deal with a French company, Technopure, to strip the asbestos from the hull so the ship can be towed to the giant Alang yard in India, where it is to be broken up for scrap. Technopure claims that only 45 tonnes of asbestos remain in the structure.

2005: French environmental groups and international pressure group Greenpeace file a lawsuit to block the departure of the hull, which they say still contains large amounts of asbestos. At the end of the year, a court rules that the vessel can nevertheless be towed to India, via the Suez Canal.

January 6, 2006: India's Supreme Court rules against allowing the hulk, officially known as "Hull Q790", to be decontaminated in India prior to demolition.

Jan 12: Greenpeace activists board the vessel as it approaches the Suez Canal. The Egyptian authorities initially refuse it passage, relenting on January 22.

Feb 3: Environmental groups publish a study claiming that the hulk still contains between 500 and 1,000 tonnes of asbestos-contaminated material.

Feb 8: The European Commission seeks an explanation from France on the deal to send the vessel to India.

Feb 12: A row breaks out over the amount of asbestos that Technopure removed from the vessel before its departure from the Mediterranean port of Toulon.

The French defence ministry orders a probe after finding it cannot locate 30 tonnes of toxic material which Technopure claimed it had removed.

Feb 13: India's Supreme Court orders a new study into the materials aboard the hull, which remains banned from entering Indian territorial waters.

Feb 15: French President Jacques Chirac orders the Clemenceau back home after France's highest court blocks its transfer to India.

Feb 22: The Clemenceau begins its journey home.

April 6: The ship rounds the Cape of Good Hope.

May 17: The Clemenceau reaches its home port of Brest in northwestern France. The French authorities, who must now find a solution for its dismantling, have promised it would not remain in Brest beyond 2008.

burs/ds-ec/mb

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