American and French military planes fly together in formation over the French aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle in January 2014. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)
Copyright 2014 AP. All rights reserved.
Two United States Navy supercarriers – the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) – are now operating in the Arabian Sea. A third nuclear-powered aircraft carrier also arrived in the Red Sea on Wednesday, and could be in “pre-position” to head to the Strait of Hormuz.
That warship is the French Navy’s flagship FS Charles de Gaulle.
Navy Outlook, an independent British news outlet that covers maritime topics, shared photos on X of the Charles de Gaulle Carrier Strike Group passing through the Suez Canal.
The arrival of the French flattop comes as the United States Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) transited the Strait of Gibraltar and is now sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, bound for Naval Station Norfolk, ending her record-long deployment.
French Flagship Deployed To The Middle East
The French aircraft carrier and her strike group were deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in early March, after the United States and Israel began their air campaign against Iran. The FS Charles de Gaulle transited the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s commitment to open the Strait of Hormuz, which remains largely shut down to commercial traffic.
That has raised oil prices on the global market, as nearly one-fifth of the global oil supply transits through the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.
Macron’s office said in a statement that the deployment of the carrier was “a signal that not only are we ready to secure the Strait of Hormuz but that we are also capable of doing so.”
NATO members France and the UK are now leading a multinational mission to the Middle East to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. France and the UK, which have been joined by more than 40 other countries, have emphasized that the deployment of military assets will be defensive in nature.
“The movement of the carrier strike group is separate from the military operations initiated in the region and complements the security posture,” the French Ministry of Defense added.
The exact destination of the FS Charles de Gaulle remains unclear, as does how long the warship may remain at sea. The French Navy’s flagship departed her homeport of Toulon in January, and past deployments have rarely exceeded four or five months.
About The French Flagship
Named for the general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II and later served as President of France, FS Charles de Gaulle is the largest warship ever built in France, and the largest in Western Europe.
The aircraft carrier entered service in May 2001.
Displacing just 40,000 tons and comparable in size to the U.S. Navy’s Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, the FS Charles de Gaulle is significantly smaller than the Nimitz-class supercarriers. However, the French flagship is considered to be the most advanced carrier not currently operated by the U.S. Navy.
It is nuclear-powered, with two K15 reactors, and employs a Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery system to launch and recover aircraft.
Its air wing typically consists of upwards of 40 aircraft, including around 30 Dassault Rafale M carrier-based “omnirole” fighters and two Grumman E-2C Hawkeye all-weather tactical airborne early warning and command-and-control aircraft.
Although most of her past deployments have been in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, she has previously operated in waters near the Middle East.
In November 2024, the FS Charles de Gaulle also began the Mission Clemenceau 25, a five-month-long deployment to the Indo-Pacific. It was the first time that a French carrier strike group operated in the Pacific in more than 55 years.
That deployment saw the French carrier take part in the Multi Large Deck Event PACIFIC STELLER with the U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. The nuclear-powered flattop returned to her home port of Toulon in the south of France in late April 2025.