Blocking the Suez, Twilight style

[bash]

With respect to the French clearing the blockage of the canal by 2000, because it doesn't have locks or anything the French could have just used a nuclear demolition charge and literally cleared the southern blockage. Such a thing doesn't need to be perfect to work well enough to let tankers transit the canal. Transiting ships just get a NAVTEX warning to button up in the area and some basic decontamination procedures.