While Britain assembles the bits of two "grey cruise liners", the one of which the French Navy is (was?)
très fier has got a bad bout of electrical trouble when due to leave Toulon for an exercise in the Indian Ocean, and will not be taking part.
TV reports list quite a lot of unserviceabilities in the ship's history, not least the badly cast propeller, after which it had to use the props off an earlier carrier till a new one could be made - and it was said that after the C de G was finished, the works where the faulty prop was cast had been closed and the job had to be done in the States.
- NOTE This last may well just be rumour, and
La Marine Nationale isn't all that good at
PR. In any case, it's not something a European Navy would be all that proud of.
I hope the MoD(Navy) has got a good bronze-casting shop on the go ...