The head of state flies directly from Doha to Egypt on Monday for the traditional Christmas party with the troops.
Scarcely has the soccer World Cup ended, after France’s defeat in the final against Argentina, than Emmanuel Macron joins the traditional Christmas party with the troops on the French aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle off Egypt on Monday. The head of state flies direct from Doha to Egypt, from where he will board the flagship of the French Navy.
Emmanuel Macron will express his “trust and support” for the armed forces and be “accountable” for the Charles-de-Gaulle’s mission on Monday evening before the sailors of the aircraft carrier, the Elysée said. He will sleep aboard this steel giant before joining Jordan on Tuesday.
“Strategic Agility”
The Charles-de-Gaulle aircraft carrier is taking part both in strengthening NATO’s defense and deterrent attitude towards Russia against the background of the war in Ukraine, and in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and Syria. “It really is a tool for strategic agility. Depending on how the situation evolves, it can switch from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean,” stresses the French Presidency.
The French Navy’s tallest building, which left Toulon on November 15, is escorted by frigates, oil tankers, a nuclear submarine and maritime patrol planes.
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Emmanuel Macron traveled to Africa (Chad 2018, Ivory Coast 2019) for the troupe’s last Christmas party. In 2020 and 2021 he had to do without it due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Relations with the junta in Mali, where the head of state wanted to travel, had also deteriorated sharply in the past year.
Since then, France has partially refocused its military presence on NATO’s eastern front in the face of the Russian threat and throttled sails in the Sahel, where it ended anti-terrorist Operation Barkhane.
Since the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24, she has led a mission in Romania, at the height of the Ukrainian conflict, where she deployed 900 troops, around twenty infantry fighting vehicles (VBCI) and thirteen Leclerc tanks.
French fighter planes also regularly contribute to securing the airspace over Poland and the Baltic States. France also conducts security missions in the Black Sea using naval aircraft.
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More subtle presence Sahel
In the Sahel, the French army left Mali in August after a nine-year presence under pressure from the ruling junta, which now — though denies it — is working with the sulfurous Russian paramilitary group Wagner. However, it continues to fight against jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, which are gradually expanding their activities to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. The French force now numbers 3,000 troops in Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, having numbered up to 5,500 at the height of its deployment.
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Paris is also not ruling out the withdrawal of French special forces stationed in Burkina Faso, the scene of anti-French demonstrations in November, which Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said had “reached an arrangement” with the Wagner group.
On December 15, the last French soldiers deployed in the Central African Republic also left the country, which has been plagued by civil war since 2013 and which is also deployed by the Wagner Group.