ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE — For France’s navy, the Akila mission in the Mediterranean Sea entailed a lot of firsts.
For the first time, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier — a
nuclear-powered vessel with up to 2,000 sailors aboard able to sail
1,000 kilometers a day — came under NATO’s operational control, causing a political storm in Paris.
Also for the first time, French Rafale Marine fighter jets flew from
the Ionian Sea to the Baltic Sea — a six-hour, 4,000-kilometer flight
across Europe. Above Poland, they were refuelled in the air by a French
tanker aircraft.
The Akila mission included participation in NATO's Neptune Strike
2024 exercise, a way for France to show fellow NATO members that Paris
aims to be a key player in the alliance, as well as to send a message to
Russia.
“It's a demonstration of capability that appeals to all audiences:
our partners and our competitors,” said Vessel Captain Guillaume Denis, a
pilot who now leads the carrier’s air wing. “NATO must be assured of
its strength and be able to move from one theater to another."
The Charles de Gaulle is the armored fist of the French navy, and is
crucial in any effort by Paris to project force. At 261 meters long,
equipped with steam-powered catapults to launch aircraft that only the
U.S. (and soon, China) can match, the vessel can also potentially carry nuclear weapons.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the changed security
environment has made exercises like Neptune Strike a key part of `NATO's
effort to improve interoperability with allies and deter potential
enemies.
The drill ran through April and May with ships from 11 NATO countries, including the Charles de Gaulle.
The French warship, equipped with Aster 15 and Mistral missiles, 20mm
F2 guns, Narwhal artillery turrets and machine guns, also carried 18
Rafales, two U.S.-made E-2C Hawkeye tactical airborne early warning
aircraft, and two Dauphin helicopters. The French carrier strike group
included five frigates from France, Greece, Portugal and Italy, a
refueling tanker, and a French nuclear-powered attack submarine.
For France, which has been signaling since 2022 that NATO is a priority,
the exercise was also a way to harmonize better with the alliance.
Until the war in Ukraine, Paris devoted much of its military effort —
especially of its land forces — to France's former African colonies.
Now, the French push in NATO includes taking the lead in operating an
alliance battlegroup in Romania.
Participating in Neptune Strike is about “reaffirming France's place
in NATO, and its attachment and loyalty to the alliance, in preparation
for high-intensity combat,” said Corvette Captain Florent, in charge of
operations management in the French carrier strike group. (The surnames
of French military personnel are sometimes withheld for security
reasons.)
Deterrence at sea
The exercise was also designed to assert NATO's maritime presence in the Mediterranean.
Russia has a naval base in Tartus, Syria, which it
has used to intervene in that country's bloody civil war. Moscow’s
footprint in the region has expanded since the war in Ukraine began.
Before
2022, France’s carrier strike group could sail to Cyprus without coming
across Russian ships. Now, French warships start preparing for Russian
vessels at the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and southern Italy.
“Russians are roaming all over the Mediterranean. We know they're
around. We watch them, and they watch us,” said Lieutenant Commander
Alexandre Duguay, a liaison officer from the Canadian navy within the
French carrier strike group.
In June 2022, in response to the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine, NATO leaders decided to significantly enhance joint exercises.
For the French carrier strike group, one of Neptune Strike's main goals was to improve understanding of NATO’s chain of command.
“The exercise confirmed that working within a group is difficult, but
we’re stronger together: When you're well organized and you aggregate
capacities, you multiply them,” Rear Admiral Jacques Mallard, the
carrier strike group’s commander, said after Neptune Strike ended.
Areas for improvement, he added, include logistics, intelligence sharing and coordination.
The scale of the challenge posed by Russia is forcing both NATO and
France to spread themselves thin — from the Mediterranean, where the
strike group was based, to the Baltic Sea, where two of the Rafale
Marine fighter jets were tasked with finding a target, taking pictures
without getting noticed, and simulating a strike at sea, not far from
the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
That's very different from the Charles de Gaulle's previous campaign against the Islamic State
in the 2010s, said Frigate Captain Raphaël, in charge of planning air
operations in the carrier strike group’s military staff, speaking from a
room where officers come to relax, watch TV and play foosball.
“In Iraq and Syria, there was only one theater, focused on the Middle
East. Here, our forces are much more spread [out],” he explained. And
that requires adjustments: “We have to be more flexible, and turn to our
allies. For example, we don't have an air tanker in the Baltic Sea.”
Regaining influence
The French NATO effort doesn't mean Paris has dropped its traditional
friction with Washington. On the contrary, France is pushing for a
"European pillar" in the military alliance and hasn't abandoned its ambition to be a balancing power on the world stage. France is also strongly opposed
to widening NATO's geographical scope to the Indo-Pacific region, which
is expected to be a divisive issue at the alliance's July summit in
Washington.
But Paris is increasingly trying to do its share for the continent's collective defense. According to a study published by French think tank IFRI last year, France has gone from "difficult ally to essential contributor."
Even
when it was not in NATO's integrated command, France remained an
alliance member, and the French air force and navy operated with NATO
allies.
"It's no coincidence that we have compatible equipment and the same
doctrine," General Jean-Paul Paloméros, NATO's supreme allied commander
for transformation from 2012 to 2015, said in a phone interview.
France's ground forces, however, are less integrated, the French
general added, because they haven't needed to operate in coalitions. But
the French army is working on it and last year created a land command for Europe.
“I’ve never for one second doubted the French military, their
capabilities and the professionalism of their people. The commitment I
didn’t see is political,” retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, a
former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, said in a phone
interview, adding he’d noticed “a much more proactive French political
effort and voice” since 2022.
But cozying up to NATO carries a political price in Paris. According to a 2019 study, French people have some of the least positive views of NATO among member countries.
Far-right and far-left parties — which regularly campaign on once
again taking France out of NATO's integrated command — harshly
criticized the Charles de Gaulle’s participation in the NATO mission,
claiming French President Emmanuel Macron was selling out the French
navy's crown jewel to the Americans.
Aboard the French carrier, officers insisted that being under NATO's operational control was not a loss of sovereignty.
Earlier this month, French lawmaker Anne Genetet from Macron's
Renaissance party called for a "major reinforcement of the NATO culture
in France" to become more influential within the organization.
NATO's French delegation is understaffed, and unlike Germany, NATO
postings are not valued in French military careers, according to a
parliamentary report Genetet co-wrote with Bastien Lachaud from
left-wing France Unbowed. The French military school for reserve
officers opened a new class this year focused on NATO to get more people
interested in an alliance posting.
"We've lost influence and we need to regain it," Paloméros said. "We're well on the way."
