French destroyer Lorraine makes port call in Manila

On June 23, 2023, French Navy destroyer Lorraine will be making a port call in Manila. 

Since April 8, 2023, the destroyer Lorraine has been undergoing her Long Duration deployment (LDD), the last step before her commissioning. This deployment intends to verify the ship’s military capabilities. In the waters of the Pacific, a demanding operational environment, the destroyer’s endurance, the robustness of its combat system and tactical data links, and the performance of its sensors and command and control capabilities were tested and evaluated. This is the French Navy’s eighth and last Anti-Submarine Warfare destroyer, the last two of them being fitted with enhanced air defense capabilities. 

With a seasoned crew capable of conducting operations in all types of environments, the destroyer Lorraine trains for her main reasons: aircraft carrier escort, anti-submarine warfare, and combating air threats. 

As part of her deployment, the Lorraine was in the Red Sea in support of the EU NAVFOR ATALANTE operation, when the evacuation of Sudanese and foreign nationals was launched. Following a request from the UN to France, Lorraine embarked 400 nationals of approximately 60 different nationalities, including Filipino citizens, and more than 100  children, as part of a UN convoy coming out of Khartoum. 

During her stopover in Manila, Lorraine will conduct several cooperation activities and high-level professional exchanges with Filipino authorities. On this occasion, the Lorraine crew will welcome Rear Admiral Geoffroy d’Andigné, Joint Commander of the French Armed Forces in the Asia-Pacific Zone, who is on an official visit to the Philippines. These regular high-level interactions illustrate the interoperability and trust between our two armed forces. 

As an Indo-Pacific nation, thanks to its many islands in the region, France intends to contribute to regional security by projecting assets from those islands in the region or coming from Europe. As Asia-Pacific is the center of gravity for the Lorraine’s deployment, it has interacted with a number of France’s strategic partners, such as the United States and Japan. It is thus helping to strengthen the interoperability and mutual understanding of our navies, as well as the ties that bind France to these partners as well as the Philippines.

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