By RFIPublié on 27-10-2019Modified on 27-10-2019 at 22:13
This Monday, October 28 begins the exercise "Grand African Nemo". For ten days, the French Navy will secure the Gulf of Guinea with fourteen African riparian states. This naval approach aims to combat the various traffic that proliferate in this strategic maritime zone.
In the Gulf of Guinea, more than 4,000 ships pass daily from Senegal to Angola. An environment, therefore, conducive to crime. Illegal fishing and brigandage represent a real threat to the prosperity of riparian countries.
Grand African Nemo and his naval deployment - in which France participates with the command and supply building La Somme - is therefore aimed at stopping trafficking that also feeds terrorist networks, says Rear Admiral Gilles Boidevezy, in charge of international relations for the French Navy.
" The States of the region must also be allowed maximum security and stability because it is also a necessary condition to be the most effective against the terrorist threat and this security and stability depend on the ability to maintain economic activities. And to effectively maintain economic activities, there must be no piracy, no illegal fishing, etc ... ", he explained.
For France, which for thirty years has been providing naval permanence in the Gulf of Guinea, it is also a question of ensuring the safety of the 80,000 French nationals residing in the coastal countries of West Africa.
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