France is back again in the warfront, as France President Francois Hollande declared sending its largest warship to join the US coalition forces in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS).
This deployment of the Charles de Gaulle carrier according to Hollande is “a rational choice” that would enable the French to coordinate efficiently with its allies”, as it will shorten the time for French jets to conduct air strikes.
Branded as France’s largest warship, the carrier comes with several frigates, a refueling ship, and an attack submarine. The aircraft carrier, which is France only largest and nuclear powered vessel can house up to 40 aircraft and can launched 100 flights daily or a jet every 30 seconds.
The Charles de Gaulle has previously been deployed in the fight against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. It served as a base for French jets in the Persian Gulf from February through April.
France is currently targeting the ISIS with six Mirage jets stationed in Jordan and six Rafale jets in the United Arab Emirates, according to the BBC.
Reckoning its involvement in the coalition, France fighter jets have conducted 271 strikes, 1,285 aerial missions across Iraq since September 2014 according to the AFP news agency. These activities, as justified by the French officials are carried out in response to IS twin attacks in Paris at the beginning of the year, killing 17 people as “self defence”.
Meanwhile in Syria, France had only conducted two air strikes against the ISIS training camp in east Syria in September this year.
Opposite to France propulsive and warring move, Canada is at its turning point of involvement in the ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria. The newly sworn-in Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has expressed his commitment to the Canadian citizens to bring the fighter jets home.
Although, Canada is considered a strong country member of the US led coalition, but the Prime Minister’s first official function was a phone call to US President Barack Obama, to end Canada’s combat mission, a gesture of fulfilling his campaign promise.
The two countries, France and Canada may have opposite views and directions in this fight against the IS group but the US – led air strike coalition in Iraq and Syria, which have recorded 7,000 air strikes since then will continue. The other member countries which followed the US in the number of air strikes are the UK, Netherlands, France, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Belgium.
