The French government has ordered an inquiry into the company charged with stripping asbestos from the Clemenceau warship ahead of its arrival in India for the final stages of its demolition, France's defence minister said on Tuesday.

A state prosecutor has been asked to probe "the discrepancy between the amount of asbestos that Technopure claims to have removed from the Clemenceau and the weight recorded at the landfill site," Michele Alliot-Marieshe told Europe 1 radio.

The Defence Ministry has admitted it has had "trouble tracing" 30 of the 115 tons of asbestos-contaminated materials officially removed from the warship, which has been sent to India for final decontamination and scrapping.

The decommissioned aircraft carrier, which left France on Dec. 31, has been ordered to stay out of Indian territorial waters pending a final Supreme Court decision on whether to allow it into the country.

Environmental activists in France and India have tried to prevent the ship from being dismantled in India, saying Indian shipyard workers lack proper protection for working with cancer-causing asbestos.

Greenpeace claims -- based on data supplied by Technopure -- that there are still 500 to 1,000 tons of asbestos-contaminated materials on board, although the French defence ministry says the ship contains no more than 45 tons of asbestos.

Alliot-Marie lashed out in the radio interview at the boss of Technopure, Jean-Claude Giannino, accusing him of "sowing doubt" and "putting pressure on various authorities".

Interviewed on Europe 1, Giannino said Technopure could prove it had removed only 70 tons of asbestos from the ship, and repeated that "according to experts" the Clemenceau still contains 760 tons of the substance. .

Source: Xinhua