The toxic ship shunned by the world... so let's bring it to Britain!

A French aircraft carrier that was too toxic to be dismantled in India is to be towed to Britain within weeks.

The Clemenceau, which is riddled with asbestos, was decommissioned in 1997 and has spent the last five years searching for a final resting place.

The stripped-down hulk, once the flagship of the French navy, has been moored off the French naval base of Brest since 2006 when the then president, Jacques Chirac, called it back from India.It followed a public outcry in which he was accused by opposition MPs of 'lecturing the world on the environment while having other countries deal with our toxic ships'.

Now Hull Q790, as the former pride of the French navy is now named, will be dismantled by Able UK after being towed to the firm's Graythorp site in Teesside.

It is expected to arrive by late summer.

The Health & Safety Executive exempted Able UK from parts of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 to let the Clemenceau come, but imposed strict conditions.

Environmental campaigners had opposed the break-up of the Clemenceau in Britain, but backed down after receiving assurances from Able UK over its methods for decontaminating 700 tons of asbestos.

Ingvild Jenssen of the Brussels-based Platform on Shipbuilding, a coalition of 14 environmental organisations including Greenpeace, said: 'Overall we are happy to see the ship going to the UK rather than India.

'As far as we know now, Able does have all its environmental permits and planning permits.'

Able's chairman, Peter Stephenson, said: 'We have always argued that, given the opportunity, we would lead the way in recycling ships to the highest possible environmental standards. This has been underlined by the decision that we should undertake work on the Clemenceau, which will be the biggest ship recycling project so far handled by any European yard.'

The Clemenceau will be broken up alongside four other vessels, including four 'ghost ships' from the American National Defence Reserve Fleet and three UK ships.

The decision will be a relief to the Breton port of Brest, which has had the hulk on its skyline for the past two years. The 878ft vessel, which saw action off Lebanon in the 1980s and in the Gulf in 1991, was decommissioned in 1997 and initially docked in the Mediterranean port of Toulon.

Work on the Clemenceau will help to preserve 170 jobs created by the the U.S. order, which was delayed by green protesters who launched a number of legal challenges and who are still angry at the decision to allow them to be dismantled.