Official confirms design work nearly complete on future French Navy aircraft carrier

Design work on a future nuclear-powered aircraft carrier being proposed for the French Navy is nearly complete, a senior official of the service confirmed recently.

Captain Thibault Lavernhe, a program officer with the French Navy's "next-generation aircraft carrier" (porte-avions de nouvelle génération; PANG) project, said that the ship is already, "designed on paper," and that he expects the Ministry of Armed Forces to make its final decision on the project before the end of this year.