Pafos Live 12 April 2024
The French Navy has been conducting military exercises lately, but these are not limited to patrol operations but to the possibility of naval battles. Rear Admiral Ziak Mayard, commander of the naval formation that includes the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, told POLITICO that these exercises were "a war against an enemy that wants to destroy us."
As he explains in the interview, when he joined the armed forces in 1990, the main mission of the navy was to prevent drug traffickers and combat illegal fishing. The training back then was that inflatable boats would leave the ships to hunt down criminals.
"Now, the training is focused on war," Mayard said.
"A naval battle is becoming increasingly likely. We are moving from a world in which we were quite free to do whatever we wanted, to a world in which we feel threatened on a more permanent basis. Now we are training for other missions, what we call high-intensity warfare," he added.
France is currently the only EU country to have a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, which also carries nuclear weapons. It is the flagship of a larger group of warships, which includes nuclear submarines, frigates and Raphael fighter jets.
This group of vessels is preparing to begin a mission in the Mediterranean in the next few days. With Russia's war against Ukraine expanding into the Black Sea and Yemen's Houthis attacking warships and merchant ships in the Red Sea, Western naval forces are having to adapt to a new environment with increasingly bizarre enemies.
"It's here that we need to be a little more aggressive, or at least we're getting ready to be," the rear admiral said.
"Sailors are practicing to confront someone who wants to destroy us. Not someone who is trafficking something illegally or stealing fish or watching us," he said.
In 2021, the French Navy with the naval exercise Polaris set out to simulate a naval battle. The idea was to give sailors the opportunity to use their imagination to confront other ships.
"It has a higher risk, but it is useful to develop tactical thinking," Mayard said, adding that the Polaris exercise would take place with the Italian navy in the spring.
