News

French asbestos victims against selling SS Norway for scrap: don't let it happen again in Asia!

Amsterdam, March 15, 2005 - The Greenpeace Top 50 ship SS Norway is the cause of a historical new case of international solidarity awakening in France. Workers who once built the famous cruiseship (the former SS France) in St.-Nazaire in France in 1960, are worried by the asbestos risks for the Asian workers when dismantling the ship. The French workers don't want to expose the Asian workers on shipbreaking yards to the risks that they were exposed to when building the ship. Now, fortyfive years later, many French workers are falling ill from working with the asbestos while building the ship. Asbestos is all over the vessel: in the heating system, the engine room and the cabin walls. According to the workers the ship contains 1250 tons of asbestos containing materials. The French workers called out for a manifestation on the 26th of March in Bremerhaven (Germany) to protest on the potential departure of the ship for scrap without being decontaminated properly.

The workers got support from several organisations, one of them being 'Robin des Bois' in France. This environmental organisation calls upon Germany to act under the Basel Convention framework and stop the export of the ship without properly being decontaminated of asbestos and all other toxic substances. Robin des Bois also demands that all involved states, being France (where the ship was built), Norway (who owns the ship), the Bahamas (who flags the ship) and Germany (port of export), act together in order to organise the decontamination of the 'pride of France' before it leaves the German harbour to be scrapped.

Links

- See the SS Norway on the Greenpeace top 50 list

- More information (in French) on the website of the French workers

- Website Robin des Bois