The warship carried the usual sensors, processing and communications systems to cover air-search, surface-search, navigation and fire control operations.
Once taken into service, FS Clemenceau and her sister marked the first purpose-built carriers for the French Navy. As such, the pair was under constant revision throughout their service lives. In 1962, she joined NATO exercises in Mediterranean waters and attempted to locate the wreckage of the lost submarine FS Minerve (S647) in 1968 (the vessel was never found). French nuclear testing then saw the carrier stationed in the Pacific as flagship of a forty-strong French naval presence in the region of Polynesia. From 1974 to 1977, she was stationed in the Indian Ocean during Operation Saphir I and Saphir II during the independence of Djibouti. In 1983-1984, she was stationed in Gulf waters during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and took part in Operation Promethee in the Gulf of Oman during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
One of her final notable commitments was in the 1991 Gulf War as part of the coalition arranged to defeat Saddam Hussein and his vaunted Iraqi military which has invaded neighboring Kuwait the year prior. Beyond this the warship was committed for a time to the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s as part of the UN involvement there. Her decommissioning followed on October 1st, 1997.
With her service time now over, Clemenceau was set aside for scrapping. An initiative to have her scrapped in India was abandoned due to protests so a British-based firm handled this action. The work began in late 2009 and ended in 2010.
FS Clemenceau was replaced in French Navy service by FS Charles de Gaulle (R91). de Gaulle, another conventionally-powered French carrier design, was launched in May of 1994 and continues in service with the French Fleet today (2018).
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