WEuropean Union Force RCA, commonly referred as EUFOR RCA, is the United Nations-mandated European Union peacekeeping mission in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic. The goal of the mission is to stabilize the area after more than a year of internal conflict. Agreement about the mission was reached in January 2014, and the first operations started at the end of April. The mission ended its mandate after nearly a year on 15 March 2015.
WStanding French Navy Deployments is a list of current deployments by the French Navy:
WOn 19 March 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya, to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, in response to events during the Libyan Civil War. The United Nations' intent and voting was to have "an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute crimes against humanity ... imposing a ban on all flights in the country's airspace – a no-fly zone – and tightened sanctions on the [Muammar] Gaddafi regime and its supporters."
WOperation Adolphe a military operation by the French Army that took place during the First Indochina War, commencing in April 1953. It was the last of several operations that spring, concluding before the monsoon season made campaigning difficult until the commencement of Operation Camargue in July.
WOperation Atlante was a military operation of the First Indochina War which consisted of three stages, Aréthuse, Axelle and Attila, taking place across six months from January 20, 1954. French Army commander General Henri Navarre employed 53 battalions of French infantry and artillery in an attempt to ensnare 30,000 Việt Minh troops thought to be secreted among the 2,000,000 strong local population in the marshy lagoons between Da Nang and Nha Trang in southern Vietnam. The objective was to pacify the local populace and re-establish the sovereignty of the Bảo Đại government.
WOperation Barkhane is an ongoing anti-insurgent operation started on August 1, 2014 which is led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa's Sahel region. It consists of a roughly 5,000-strong French force, which is permanently headquartered in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. The operation is lead in cooperation with five countries, and former French colonies, that span the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. These countries are collectively referred to as the "G5 Sahel". The operation is named after a crescent-shaped dune in the Sahara desert.
WThe Bizerte Crisis occurred in July 1961 when Tunisia imposed a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte, Tunisia, hoping to force its evacuation. The crisis culminated in a three-day battle between French and Tunisian forces that left some 630 Tunisians and 24 French dead and eventually led to France ceding the city and naval base to Tunisia in 1963.
WOperation Brochet took place during the French Indochina War, between August and October, 1953. A combined arms operation, Brochet involved 18 battalions of the French Expeditionary and Vietnamese National Armies fighting against the 42nd and 50th Viet Minh Regiments, fighting in the southern reaches of the Red River Delta near Tonkin in North Vietnam. The 1st and 2nd Parachute Battalions of the French Foreign Legion (BEP), and the 1st and 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalions (BPC) took part, as did forces of the Vietnamese National Army. Their objective was to sweep the Delta and remove Viet Minh influence.
WOperation Camargue was one of the largest operations by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Vietnamese National Army in the First Indochina War. It took place from 28 July until 10 August 1953. French armored platoons, airborne units and troops delivered by landing craft to the coast of central Annam, modern-day Vietnam, attempted to sweep forces of the communist Viet Minh from the critical Route One.
WOpération Castor was a French airborne operation in the First Indochina War. The operation established a fortified airhead in Điện Biên Province, in the north-west corner of Vietnam and was commanded by Brigadier General Jean Gilles. The Operation began at 10:35 on 20 November 1953, with reinforcements dropped over the following two days. With all its objectives achieved, the operation ended on 22 November. Castor was the largest airborne operation since World War II.
WOperation Ceinture was a late 1947 military endeavour by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps against the Viet-Minh during the First Indochina War. A month-long effort that commenced on 20 November following the cessation of Operation Lea, Ceinture intended to rid the region between Hanoi, Thai Nguyen and Tuyen Quang of Viet-Minh infiltration. The French utilised 18 paratroop battalions and naval landing craft to engage the Viet-Minh's 112 Regiment, however the latter were able to for the most part slip through French cordons, abandoning weapon caches. The cumulative casualties after Operation Ceinture and Operation Lea were 1,000 for the French and 9,500 for the Viet Minh.
WOpération Chammal is a French military operation in Iraq and Syria in an attempt to contain the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to support the Iraqi Army. Its name comes from the Shamal, a northwesterly wind that blows over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states.
WThe Franco-Dutch War, often simply called the Dutch War, fought from 1672 to 1678, was a major conflict which pitted France against the Dutch Republic. It also involved many other European states, including the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, England, Sweden, Brandenburg-Prussia and Denmark-Norway. It was the first of the major European wars that marked the reign of Louis XIV of France.
WOpération Harmattan was the codename for the French participation in the 2011 military intervention in Libya. It was named for the Harmattan, which are hot dry winds that blow over the Sahara, mostly between November and March. The United States' counterpart to this was Operation Odyssey Dawn, the Canadian counterpart was Operation Mobile and the British counterpart was Operation Ellamy. The no-fly zone was proposed during the Libyan Civil War to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi forces. Several countries prepared to take immediate military action at a conference in Paris on 19 March 2011.
WOperation Hirondelle took place during the First Indochina War in July 1953. It was an airborne raid on Viet Minh supply depots near Lạng Sơn, involving parachute units of the French Army and Vietnamese National Army. Raids near the junction of Route Coloniale 4 and Route Coloniale 1 revealed supply caches hidden in caves, which were photographed and destroyed.
WThe Invasion of Jersey was a failed French attack on British-held Jersey in 1779, during the American Revolutionary War.
WThe Larache expedition occurred in June 1765 when French Navy troops attacked the Moroccan city of Larache following a bombardment of Salé and Rabat. It is an example of the sporadic failure of Western arms against local forces in colonial campaigns.
WOpération Licorne was the name of the French Armed Forces's peacekeeping operation in support of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire. The French forces have been stationed in the country since shortly after the outbreak of the Ivorian Civil War. The troops' main mission was to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission and to ensure the security of French and foreign nationals.
WOperation Lorraine was a French military operation of the First Indochina War.
WMadama is a border settlement on the northeast frontier of Niger. Little more than an army post, the settlement serves as a frontier station controlling travel between Niger and Libya. It is also the site of a former French colonial fort, built in 1931. The fort is now surrounded by barbed wire and a field of landmines.
WOperation Manta is the code name for the French military intervention in Chad between 1983 and 1984, during the Chadian-Libyan conflict. The operation was prompted by the invasion of Chad by a joint force of Libyan units and Chadian Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) rebels in June 1983. While France was at first reluctant to participate, the Libyan air-bombing of the strategic oasis of Faya-Largeau starting on July 31 led to the assembling in Chad of 3,500 French troops, the biggest French intervention since the end of the colonial era.
WOperation Martillo is a multi-national anti drug operation that began on 15 January 2012 and aims to combat international drug trafficking, enhance regional security, and promote peace, stability and prosperity throughout Central and South America.
WOperation Medak Pocket was a military operation undertaken by the Croatian Army between 9 – 17 September 1993, in which a salient reaching the south suburbs of Gospić, in the south-central Lika region of Croatia then under the control of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, was attacked by Croatian forces. The pocket was named after the village of Medak.
WOn 14 April 2018, beginning at 04:00 Syrian time (UTC+3), the United States, France, and the United Kingdom carried out a series of military strikes involving aircraft and ship-based missiles against multiple government sites in Syria during the Syrian Civil War. They said it was in response to the Douma chemical attack against civilians on 7 April, which they attributed to the Syrian government. The Syrian government denied involvement in the Douma attacks and called the airstrikes a violation of international law.
WOperation Mouette was an operation in 1953 by the French Army in Northern Vietnam during the First Indochina War. It was launched on October 15 in an attempt to locate and destroy Viet-Minh Chu Luc troops operating under the command of Võ Nguyên Giáp around the area of Phu Nho Quan, south of the Red River Delta. Following the establishment of a French camp in the area, various troops were dispatched to engage the Viet-Minh forces. The operation was ended and the French withdrew by November 7, claiming approximately 1,000 enemy combatants killed, twice as many wounded, and 181 captured as well as a substantial quantity of weapons and ammunition.
WOpération Sentinelle is a French military operation with 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes deployed since the aftermath of the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, with the objective of protecting sensitive "points" of the territory from terrorism. It was reinforced during the November 2015 Paris attacks, and is part of an ongoing state of emergency in France due to continued terror threats and attacks.
WOperation Panther was a French military operation in Mali that was launched in February 2013.
WOperation Papillon was a large scale air and ground assault on the Viet Minh at Hòa Bình by the French Army and Air Force in April 1947, during the early stages of the First Indochina War.
WOperation Provide Comfort and Provide Comfort II were military operations initiated by the United States and other Coalition nations of the Persian Gulf War, starting in April 1991, to defend Kurdish civilians fleeing their homes in northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War and deliver humanitarian aid to them.
WThe sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand on its way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
WThe Schlieffen Plan was a name given after the First World War to German war plans, the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a war-winning offensive against the French Third Republic. After losing the First World War, German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers described the plan as a blueprint for victory. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne. German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by meddling with it out of timidity.
WOpération Séisme Haiti 2010 is France's military relief operation for the 12 January 2010 earthquake.
WOperation Serval was a French military operation in Mali. The aim of the operation was to oust Islamic militants from the north of Mali, who had begun a push into the center of Mali.
WOperation Southern Watch was an air-centric military operation conducted by the United States Department of Defense from Summer 1992 to Spring 2003.
WThe Tongo Tongo ambush or the Niger ambush occurred on 4 October 2017, when armed militants from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) attacked Nigerien and US soldiers outside the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger while they were returning to base after a stop in the village. During the ambush, five Nigeriens, four US soldiers, and at least 21 ISGS militants were killed and eight Nigeriens and two US soldiers including the team commander were wounded. In the day preceding the ambush, the Nigerien and US soldiers conducted a mission attempting to locate and capture or kill Doundou Chefou, a commander in the ISGS.
WOpération Turquoise was a French-led military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the United Nations.
WOperation Unified Protector was a NATO operation in 2011 enforcing United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 concerning the Libyan Civil War and adopted on 26 February and 17 March 2011, respectively. These resolutions imposed sanctions on key members of the Gaddafi government and authorized NATO to implement an arms embargo, a no-fly zone and to use all means necessary, short of foreign occupation, to protect Libyan civilians and civilian populated areas.