The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will soon be deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. Its mission will be to support the international anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition at work in the Middle East, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday during his vows to the armed forces.
"The Carrier Strike Group will come to support Operation Chammal (French part of the international operation Inherent Resolve, Editor's note) from January to April, before deploying to the Atlantic and the North Sea", he detailed before an audience soldiers and elected officials at Air Base 123 in Orleans.
It "will be the heart of combined operations in several European countries," he said in a speech to two Rafale fighter jets. The Head of State also specified that "Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Greece will participate in the escort of Charles-de-Gaulle during his mission".
A "European force"
"This European force, like our Lynx deployment in the Baltic countries, will strengthen the transatlantic link and NATO, further proof that European defense and NATO are the two pillars of the same building," he stressed.
"In the Near and Middle East, despite the changes in the region, our forces engaged in Operation Chammal are continuing operations to fight against Daesh […] whose threat still hangs in another, more hidden, more insidious form", he insisted, before launching a barely veiled spade to countries which, like Germany and Canada, withdrew part of their contingent from Iraq in early January.
"France, from the start, with consistency [...], it has remained with determination, with courage", and "those who fight against the terrorist threat, those who suffer it, in this region, know who is there and that remains, "he hammered.
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Before his speech, Emmanuel Macron attended a demonstration of a paratrooper commando engaged in external operations, as currently in the Sahel, before being presented with anti-aircraft defense of nuclear bases and the tools of the anti-drone fight.
