News

French Navy destroyer makes first port call in Sri Lanka

17 Mar, 2025

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A French Navy destroyer deployed in the Indo Pacific region to take part in the Clemenceau 25 operation, arrived at the port of Colombo.

The main objective of Clemenceau 25 is to strengthen interoperability with all allies of France while promoting a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific space with all its partners, the French Embassy in Colombo said.

The 142-meter-long Navy ship has been at sea since 24 November 2024. The French navy ship has taken part in military exercises such as LA PEROUSE 25 with Indo-Pacific nations.

Sri Lanka and France have been maintaining a bilateral relationship for over 75 years, and have joined their efforts in several military exercises, to the example of the 2022 and 2023 sessions of the India and France co-organized IMEX exercise, which focused on humanitarian assistance.

The Regional Centre for Maritime Studies (RCMS) is the fruit of cooperation between France and Sri Lanka in the field of maritime cooperation, inaugurated in December 2024.

This center illustrates France?s approach to fostering capacity building and multilateral approach to the mutual challenges faced in the Indo-Pacific region, where France has around one million nationals and which represents 30% of its Exclusive Economic Zone.

France and Sri Lanka shared ambition of the RCMS is to foster sustainable cooperation in the region to standardize operational procedures.

Furthermore, France is involved in many missions in the Indian Ocean, such as the EU operation ATALANTA, which combats piracy and drug trafficking, and is part of the international navy coalition Combined Maritime Forces, alongside Sri Lanka, which has been in command of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 154 since January 2025.

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