An asbestos-laden French aircraft carrier that was too toxic for Indian breakers' yards is to be towed to the UK for dismantling, it was announced yesterday.

The agreement to send the Clemenceau, once the flagship of the French navy, to Able UK, near Hartlepool, ends an embarrassing five-year saga that saw the toxic vessel wander the high seas in a vain search for a final resting place.

The stripped-down hulk, which once displaced 32,700 tons, has been moored off Brest since an odyssey that ended in 2006 when President Chirac called it back from India in the midst of an outcry. The Socialist opposition at the time denounced Mr Chirac for "lecturing the world on the environment while having other countries deal with our toxic ships."

The French Defence Ministry awarded to contract to Able UK after the British Environment Agency issued a waste management licence that allows the Tyneside firm to dismantle ships and oil rigs at its TERRC facility at Graythorp.

The biggest ship to be recycled in a European yard will be dismantled alongside vessels already at the dock, - including four “ghost ships” from the American National Defence Reserve Fleet and three UK ships. Hull Q790, as the former pride of the French navy is now named, is to arrive late in the summer.

The Health & Safety Executive exempted Able from sections of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 in order to let the Clemenceau come but it imposed strict conditions. Able said in a statement that it was "leading the way in recycling ships to the highest possible environmental standards."

Environmental campaigners were initially opposed the break-up of the Clemenceau in Britain, but Able has convinced them that its methods for decontaminating 700 tonnes of asbestos are reliable.

Ingvild Jenssen of the Brussels-based Platform on Shipbuilding, a coalition of 14 environmental organisations including Greenpeace, said that Able appeared to have the necessary controls to protect workers. "Overall we are happy to see the ship going to the UK rather than India," he said. "As far as we know now, Able does have all its environmental permits and planning permits."

The decision will be a relief to the Breton port which has had the hulk on its skyline for the past two years. The 266 metre (878 feet) 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.

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