He goes back to sea, making waves. With its 1,900 crew members, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle set sail this Monday morning, around 10 a.m., from Toulon, after eight months of work intended to “modernize its capabilities”. The flagship of the French military fleet, with its Rafale Marine fighter planes, left the port escorted by a nuclear attack submarine, specialized frigates and a refueling vessel, all constituting the largest “carrier group” in the world. ‘Europe.
The Charles-de-Gaulle is thus sailing towards an unprecedented mission. From April 26 to May 10, it will participate, for the first time, in a NATO mission bringing together ships from several nations (United States, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy) under the command of the general staff maritime, comprising fifteen nations including France, and led by an American vice-admiral.
On April 25, on the eve of its passage under the operational control of NATO, the aircraft carrier will also welcome on board for the first time the conference of 32 ambassadors from the member countries of the alliance, a sign of reinvestment of France in NATO. French Vice-Admiral Didier Maleterre, number 2 in NATO maritime command, stressed when announcing this mission that France could “with a snap of the fingers recover the national command during operations if necessary” .
Mélenchon foam
But voices had criticized the announcement of the placement of the aircraft carrier under the control of the alliance. The leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon thus denounced on X (ex-Twitter) on April 12 a “displayed vassalization” of France.
We must not give in to the lie: France never loses command of its forces placed under the NATO flag. We are sovereign.
Our aircraft carrier will be the spearhead of this mission carried out with our allies.
We are the only Europeans capable of… https://t.co/VImGjgYefZ
— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) April 12, 2024
“We must not give in to lies,” the Minister of the Armed Forces retorted on the same network. Sébastien Lecornu, ensuring that “France never loses command of its forces placed under the NATO flag”. “Our aircraft carrier will be the spearhead of this mission carried out with our allies. We are the only Europeans capable of deploying a carrier battle group of this scale,” he added.