By Michele Kambas and John Irish
PAPHOS, Cyprus, March 9 (Reuters) – France is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East.
Speaking in Cyprus before visiting the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, which arrived this weekend in the eastern Mediterranean, President Emmanuel Macron sought to reassure his Cypriot counterpart after drones were intercepted heading towards the island last week.
“When Cyprus is attacked, then Europe is attacked,” Macron said after meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Paphos.
European states have been largely sidelined as the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran has escalated, hitting Gulf Arab states and dragging Lebanon into the line of fire after Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel.
But with shipping lanes in the Middle East impacted and the price of oil heading well above $100 a barrel, European powers are grappling with the issue of how to defend their interests.
“Our objective is to maintain a strictly defensive stance, standing alongside all countries attacked by Iran in its retaliation, to ensure our credibility, and to contribute to regional de-escalation. Ultimately, we aim to guarantee freedom of navigation and maritime security,” Macron said.
The European Union’s main naval activities in the region centre on Aspides – Shields in Greek – a Red Sea naval mission launched in early 2024 to guard vessels from attack by Iranian-aligned Houthi militants backing Palestinian militant group Hamas in its war with Israel.
“I will also add my voice to the rest of my European colleagues to reinforce the Aspides operation with more vessels,” Mitsotakis said.
“There are few of us who are participating, but here too we will need to demonstrate our European solidarity more practically.”
Macron, whose navy already provides one warship to that mission, said there would be two in total, but that in all France would deploy eight warships, the aircraft carrier group and two helicopter carriers to the region.
That could ultimately include the Strait of Hormuz to support commercial vessels, Macron said.
“We are in the process of setting up a purely defensive, purely escort mission, which must be prepared together with both European and non-European states, and whose purpose is to enable, as soon as possible after the most intense phase of the conflict has ended, the escort of container ships and tankers to gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Macron said, without elaborating.
(Additional reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro, Renee Maltezou and Eleftherios Papadimas; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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