Why France accepted a one-carrier nuclear fleet

Why did France replace two Clemenceau-class carriers with a single nuclear-powered carrier?

Post-Cold War leaders assumed future conflicts would be optional wars whose timing could accommodate one ship, allowing one carrier to replace the availability once provided by two or more.

A common 1990s assumption held that Western powers would enter only wars of choice and could therefore schedule operations around platform availability. That belief made it politically acceptable for Charles de Gaulle to replace the practical coverage of two Clemenceau-class carriers, even though one hull cannot guarantee continuous readiness.