The original design had to meet the Royal Navy's requirements, so nuclear propulsion was not an option: the British government rejected nuclear propulsion as too costly. The idea of renouncing nuclear propulsion in this way was alleged by France to be a backward step for French technology, but the operational and political gains from a common design apparently outweighed the downsides of conventional propulsion. Before cancellation the carrier's propulsion system was expected to be an integrated full electric propulsion (IFEP) based on two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines. The carrier would have had a range of approximately .