France moves aircraft carrier group toward Strait of Hormuz for possible defensive mission

PARIS (AP) - France's aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the Strait of Hormuz, the French armed forces said Wednesday.

The deployment puts Europe's most powerful warship within reach of a strait whose closure has come to epitomize the war in Iran - choking a fifth of the world's oil and triggering what the International Energy Agency calls the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

The southward repositioning of the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle and its escorts is the latest stage of a Middle East deployment first announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in a televised address on March 3, the day before Iran closed the strait.

The move south of Suez puts France's only carrier - the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier outside the U.S. Navy - closer to the Persian Gulf chokepoint of Hormuz than at any point since the war began.

"Going south of Suez is new for us," Col. Guillaume Vernet, spokesman for the French armed forces chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "Geographically, it's closer to the Strait of Hormuz and will therefore enable us to react faster, once the conditions are met."

"Planning has been done and is ready to go," he said.

But Vernet stressed that the wider Hormuz coalition - drawn up by France, Britain and more than 50 nations - will not begin operating until two thresholds are cleared: The threat to shipping must come down, and the maritime industry must be reassured enough to use the strait.

Even then, he said, any operation would require the agreement of neighboring countries.

"Today the Strait of Hormuz is stuck because of the threat, and the insurance premiums are so high. Not a single ship will jeopardize their trip or go there," he said.

The French effort is distinct from the U.S. "Project Freedom" mission, launched Sunday and paused by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening.

Washington has not been part of the French-British planning, which observers have said echoes the European "coalition of the willing" Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer assembled to support Ukraine.

The French and British coalition, by contrast, will be conditional and defensive.

"The French position is the same since the beginning - defensive posture, respecting international law," Vernet said.

Vernet traced the initiative to the days after Iran shut the strait on March 4 in retaliation for joint U.S. and Israeli strikes that began Feb. 28 and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He said that from the beginning of March, France wanted a multinational initiative to reestablish freedom of navigation in the Strait.

"Right after that, we had the opportunity to build things with different countries," including the U.K., Italy, the Netherlands and others, he said.

Macron and Starmer hosted dozens of countries at a Paris summit on April 17, and military planners from more than 30 nations finalized operational details at Britain's Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood on April 22-23.

War-risk insurance premiums for transits of the strait have risen four to five times above preconflict levels, according to industry estimates, and around 2,000 ships remain stranded in the Gulf.

The Charles de Gaulle was ordered from the Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean by Macron's March 3 address, in what the French presidency described as an "unprecedented" mobilization that also includes eight frigates and two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships.

French Rafale fighters based at the Al Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates have been intercepting Iranian drones and missiles over the Gulf state since the war began Feb. 28, under a long-standing defense pact with Abu Dhabi that puts some 900 French personnel on the Gulf's southern shore.

The carrier group's southward move places French air assets - 20 Rafale fighters and E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft - within range of the Strait of Hormuz without crossing into the Gulf, where the U.S. Navy has been blockading Iranian ports since April 13.

Vernet didn't specify a date for the French-British operation, saying the carrier was being positioned to be close enough to act if and when the conditions are met.