Presence, rescue, interventions at sea... After Emmanuel Macron's announcement, in January 2023, of a project for increased coastal surveillance, the very first French coastal reserve flotilla will be launched in June in Brest (Finistère).
Other Atlantic ports, such as La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime) and Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)
will follow in the summer of 2024. A deployment which will extend to the rest of mainland France and overseas, until 2027. In total, 3,000 reservists will have been recruited by 2030. These new numbers, designed to supporting those of the National Navy, Maritime Affairs or even the maritime gendarmerie, will be the eyes of these operational institutions.
“It is a question of creating a more constituted reserve – the Ministry of the Armed Forces had announced a doubling of the reserves to strengthen the Army-Nation link – and therefore of addressing civilian fringes, rather young people, without necessarily they officially enlist in the National Navy,” explains Frigate Captain (CF) Alban Simon, spokesperson for the Atlantic maritime prefecture, based in Brest.
Seventy reservists must be recruited in the city of Ponant, the size of a squad.
The Brest naval base will be the headquarters of the Atlantic coast, that is to say it will control the upcoming squads from La Rochelle and Bayonne.
“They will be the eyes and ears of the authorities at sea”
“There will ultimately be ten squads of 70 sailors divided evenly on each of France’s three maritime facades,” specifies CF Alban Simon.
Each will consist of a transport vehicle with a boat trailer, a boat (semi-rigid less than 8 m) that can transport up to eight reservists, and a microdrone.
The missions of these flotillas, which will act up to 6 nautical miles from the coast, in cooperation with Navy units, semaphores as well as with other administrations operating at sea, will vary according to needs.
“They will be the eyes and ears of the authorities at sea for incivility, pollution at sea, rescue, or pure surveillance,” continues CF Alban Simon.
They will carry out observation, intelligence and control.
It will then be up to the competent authorities
(maritime gendarmerie)
to establish and issue fines or act on other possible offenses.
»
And the spokesperson for the maritime prefecture gave the example of the Brest Maritime Festival 2024, which will, beyond old rigging or collector's boats, bring together an incalculable number of boaters on the harbor plan, or even to discuss the problem of pollution in Glénan last summer, which saw numerous illegal discharges of gray and black water in this protected area which was nevertheless stormed by boaters.