They only paid a small amount for us to complete a partly finished aircraft carrier that was going into mothballs .. During the early 2000s the British were planning to build two new aircraft carriers .. the French already had a new aircraft carrier but decided that they needed a second one as Thales had been involved with the British design they decided that their new carrier would be based on the British design but built in France. \the them procrastinated and decided that teir new carrier would be built during the second half of 2010s. Around 2010 they began to get feet and decided that has the British were also building a second aircraft carrier thay would only need one carrier. A douple years later the British announced that the building of the second carrier would be paused and when the superstructure was paused t wouls be put into store and could be offered for sale to an ally, it was then realised that there was a chance that the UK might leave UK, and a second French aircraft carrier might be good idea after all. Issues were the cost and that the Prince of Wales would be hard to convert to nuclear power and had also not ben built in France, however a French company Thales was losing out by the Prince of Wales not being completed. The background story is that the French then decided to chip in with the funding for Thales (a French company) to complete their part of the Prince of Wales carrier. The issue for the UK and France is that they separated by a stretch of International water that any country friendly, neutral or hostile can sail through thus it pays for the UK and France to co-operate .. in real terms outside the Commonwealth countries France is our closest ally .. forget the US of A. Actually the French are not cowards .. think Foreign Legion as one example .. their problem is that they have land borders