“Confrontation facing another state is more likely than before,” said Captain Florian El-Ahdab

The countries face a geopolitical context where “relationships between states are tightened”, explains on Franceinfo Florian El-Ahdab of the Naval Naval Combat Center.

Captain Florian El-Ahdab is at the head of the Naval Combat Center (C2N), created since the summer of 2023 to coordinate the work of all the components of the French Navy. Asked Thursday, March 13, since the Toulon naval base, the first defense base in Europe, he affirms on Franceinfo that “Confrontation in the face of another state is today more likely than before”. This is due to “Geopolitical context”, because the “Relations between states are tightened”, he explains. The captain specifies that the issues have changed since the war in Ukraine: “Since the 2001 attacks, we had issues focused on terrorism, today it is less the case.”

On the adaptation of the army to these new threats, Florian El-Ahdab assures that since 2021, the beginning of the war in Ukraine, “The army is preparing”and that she “has not waited for the past three weeks” To adapt his way of working in particular “In a constituted naval force”.

For the captain, this greater attention paid “To the naval force formed” Allows you to prepare for fights against other armies in the event of war.

“In the event of operation, it would not be isolated units that would operate, but this constituted naval force, which would itself be integrated into an inter-armed maneuver.”

Florian El-Ahdab, ship captain

in franceinfo

As for the other adaptations of the army since 2021, Florian El-Ahdab, cites, for example, the erasure of names on the hulls of the frigates of the navy. “There is no longer any marking of the names of the boats, because it provided additional information to our potential opponents. And that was not necessary elsewhere”he said.