PARIS, June 1: France looks set to resume work “very soon” on Agosta-90B submarine that French naval employees were working on when 11 of them were killed on May 8 in a terrorist attack on the bus taking them from their hotel to the Karachi naval shipyard.

The approximately 40 French employees of the Direction de la Construction Navale (DCN), the shipbuilding arm of the French Defence Ministry, working under contract to the Pakistani Navy, have all been called back to the DCN shipyard at Cherbourg, where most of the slain and wounded employees were based.

But, French diplomatic sources say that several of the employees should be returning “very soon” to Karachi to work on the second Agosta-90B and get it1shipshape by the end of summer.

The 1994 contract between Pakistan and France, worth $730 million, according to which three Agosta-90B submarines were to be built, was placed “under review” as a result of the terrorist attack, and at the instigation of a number of French political authorities, among them Bernard Cazeneuve, the mayor of Cherbourg, and a high-level socialist parliamentarian and watchdog over the French defence sector, who had asked that the contract be unilaterally terminated or renegotiated.

French diplomatic sources say, however, that although officially the contract is still “under review,” the DCN must get on with the construction of Agosta-90B, a clause of - force majeure - making the completion the submarine, mandatory.

Then too, say the French sources, the submarine, also according to the contract, must be ready for sea trials scheduled for next September, which means that the delays caused the terrorist attack must be made up for, which is why at least a skeleton crew of French technicians is expected in Karachi to resume work on the submarine.