No difficulty for France to find Mistral buyers

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday there would be "no difficulty" in finding new buyers for two Mistral warships that had been intended for Russia before Paris scrapped the deal.

"There will be no difficulty in finding buyers," Hollande told reporters in the Egyptian canal city of Ismailiya, where he attended a ceremony for the extension of the Suez Canal waterway.

Two of the 200-metre (650-foot) amphibious helicopter-carriers were due for delivery to Russia by the end of this year in a deal worth an estimated 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion).

But Paris refused to deliver the warships to Moscow in response to Russia's alleged aggression in Ukraine last year.

The deal was formally cancelled on Wednesday, and within hours French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said "several" countries had expressed an interest in buying the ships, without giving details.

Experts, however, say France will have to cut the price to make the warships attractive to resell them.
Source: AFP