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A FRENCH CAPTAIN of a massive helicopter and amphibious assault vessel visiting the town of Cobh has spoken about his ship’s war fighting but also humanitarian mission.
The Tonnerre paid a five day visit to Cork Harbour this week to rest up before they take part in a major amphibious assault exercise on the West coast of France.
The ship’s name means thunder in French and it is a specialist multi-role vessel which carries helicopters and landing craft as well as hundreds of marines.
At an event on the ship on Monday evening Schaar and other officers had lengthy discussions with head of the Irish Navy Commodore Michael Malone.
The French ambassador Céline Place was also present and there were a number of Irish and French business leaders, county councillors as well as serving and former TDs in attendance.
The French would not discuss the reports of potential purchases of armour vehicles by the Irish Defence Forces. French officials we spoke to also said they were not aware of progress with a French arms company to purchase sonar equipment for the Irish Naval Service.
Capitaine de Vaisseau, or in English, Sea Captain, Adrien Schaar said that, while he is not aware of the full military cooperation with Ireland, there is a need for European navies to protect critical undersea cables and other infrastructure.
France is currently laying an electric interconnector cable which will make landfall in East Cork.
“I would say most probably it is maritime surveillance – the ability to monitor what’s going on around your island, around your coastline, which is a challenge that all navies, all countries have.
“Also something that is quite new, and I think is the concern for both France and Ireland, is to be able to control [what is happening] on the sea bottom – to be sure that no one is going to come and cut your cables or your critical infrastructures on the sea bottom,” he said.
The Tonnerre is designed to be a seabourne launch pad for a coastal invasion but has widespread public recognition in France for participating in humanitarian missions most recently in Haiti and in 2020 in Lebanon after the port explosion. It has also participated in missions during the Libyan and Ivory Coast civil wars also.
The ship, with a capacity for 900 soldiers and sailors, has just completed a Special Forces exercise testing the security of the French port of Cherbourg.
It then headed north from a French naval base in Brest, Brittany to Ireland – it’s next mission will be to meet other ships in Plymouth and head back to France to participate in a huge multinational exercise, dubbed Polaris, off the western coast.
Schaar has been in command for the last two years.
The Toulon native is keen to stress the humanitarian side of his work: “I have saved more people than I’ve killed in this work, because most of the time we save people, most of the time we defend people.
“There are so many of these aid missions that I can’t count the amount of people I have saved working on this ship.”
It is understood the French ship was due to call into Dublin but as the port was full to capacity it made its way to Cobh.
Regardless the Captain said, Cork Harbour’s status as a cruise ship terminal, meant that the logistical restocking of stores was possible.
Schaar said that the primary mission of the ship and its crew is an offensive one but they can change to deal with humanitarian crises.
The ship has dedicated decks for helicopters, military vehicles and even an internal dock for two landing craft.
Schaar used the example of a hurricane disaster on an island country as the example of how they would respond.
“We have the storage, we have the helicopters to take the food and bring it directly to the people in very remote places, and the landing craft to go to an island that has been slaughtered by a hurricane.
“The ship has the landing craft that can go on any shore, the helicopter that can that can land in a very remote place and so on. It’s very convenient to do humanitarian assistance and even to recover our nationals in a country where there is instability, like Haiti last year,” he added.
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