The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, illustration -
PHILIPPE MAGONI / SIPA
Before leaving for a mission in the Indian Ocean in February, the crew of the French aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, heavily contaminated with coronavirus last year, will be vaccinated, announced the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, this Friday.
Nearly two-thirds of the ship's crew, the flagship of French nuclear deterrence, had been contaminated on board in 2020.
Medical evacuation capacities will be limited
“The sailors who will embark in mid-February for an operational mission will be vaccinated.
Everyone obviously understands the reasons, ”said the minister in an interview with
Var Matin
.
"So that sailors and fighter pilots can safely accomplish this long and important mission, during which medical evacuation capacities will be limited, it is necessary that they be vaccinated", she added, specifying that the vaccination campaign had started Thursday in agreement with the Ministry of Health.
Since last year, the aircraft carrier has been completely cleaned and decontaminated.
The carrier strike group is to leave on a mission in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, as part of Operation Chammal in Iraq and Syria, where France insists on the need to continue the fight against the jihadist group Islamic State.
The mission also intervenes against a backdrop of tensions with Turkey, due in particular to disagreements over Syria, Libya, the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh but also the Mediterranean, around disputed maritime areas.
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