For almost 40 years it was a symbol of French power, of grandeur. In her glory days she sailed with 2,000 men and women aboard, plus 40 fighter-bombers. He witnessed nuclear tests in the Pacific, transported the atomic bomb and participated in international crises such as the civil war in Lebanon or the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. François Mitterrand once assembled 15 African heads of state on his deck. She was even the scene of a Johnny Hallyday concert.
The old aircraft carrier Foch –in honor of the victorious marshal of the First World War– rests since Friday at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, some 350 kilometers from the Brazilian coast and more than 5,000 meters deep. The Brazilian Navy, which had bought the ship for 12 million euros in 2000 and renamed São Paulo, proceeded to carry out a "planned and controlled shipwreck." The operation has caused outrage among environmental organizations, which had classified the ship as a "floating dump" and now speak of an "environmental crime." The ship contained, in effect, almost ten tons of asbestos, as well as large amounts of other highly toxic materials such as mercury –from fluorescent tubes–, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead paints, fuel residues, batteries and other polluting products. .
The Brazilian Navy used a cause of "force majeure" to justify the sinking. He assures that the laws of the sea protect him. In reality, the Foch/São Paulo experienced a last bitter voyage. The aircraft carrier never met the expectations of the Brazilians. She suffered constant breakdowns and they decided to get rid of him. She bought it at a bargain price from a Turkish company, Sök Denizcilik, which hoped to dismantle it near Izmir and market the scrap metal obtained. Thus, starting in August of last year, the ship was towed from Rio de Janeiro across the ocean at a speed of just four knots, an almost humiliating journey for a giant with a proud past. But before reaching the Mediterranean, the Turkish government disavowed the operation for environmental reasons and at the protest of NGOs. The aircraft carrier was forced to turn back, and no one knew what to do with it. The case sparked a complex legal dispute between Brazil and the Turkish company. The Dutch tug ended up leaving the ship adrift in international waters, which represented a danger to navigation. It was the perfect excuse for the Brazilians to decide to put an end to the problem without contemplation, as soon as possible. They detonated several explosive charges that blew holes in her hull. The metallic monster, mortally wounded, descended to the depths of the Atlantic carrying with it the memory of her military exploits and the poisonous ballast of her bowels.
The Foch was conceived in the fifties. She had a sister aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau. She was built in the famous Saint-Nazaire shipyards, at the mouth of the Loire, and she entered service in 1963. With a length of 265 meters and a beam of 51 meters, she could displace 32,800 tons at full load. Her diesel engines provided a power of 126,000 horsepower.
Over the years it was seen that the Foch had become obsolete because its propulsion system gave it very little autonomy. It consumed up to 800 tons of fuel per day and had to be revitalized very frequently, nothing to do with the almost unlimited autonomy of the current Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, powered by two nuclear minireactors.
According to the French environmental organization Robin de los Bosques, the shipwreck will initially cause the death of part of the marine fauna in the deep ocean where the aircraft carrier rests. Then, lead particles from paint, arsenic, tin, asbestos, PCBs, and mercury will contaminate plankton, fish, and whales. Due to the effect of the currents, this pollution will reach the Caribbean. Robin de los Bosques recalled in a statement that the export license for the Foch, when it was sold to Brazil, stipulated that "the French authorities had to authorize the conditions for the dismantling of the ship", therefore, "in a certain way, France is complicit in this catastrophe decided and assumed by Brazil”.
