France begins deploying forces to protect Saudi oil facilities at Yanbu, the foreign ministry says

France has begun implementing the operational elements of the agreement to protect Saudi oil facilities, the foreign ministry in Paris announced on Thursday, October 15. Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux did not specify which military assets have been sent, as Arab News reports.

French support is being implemented, while the ministry confirmed neither equipment deliveries nor a deployment timetable, according to Anadolu’s French-language service. Paris also said that a French woman was injured in the recent attacks on Saudi Arabia.

“Soldiers, radars, defence systems”

President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision on September 24. “It is the discussion we completed with the Saudis. We will send military means, that is, soldiers, radars, defence systems, to protect this site, not to become involved in any conflict, but to protect this site,” he said, as recorded by Public Sénat.

The site is Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main crude export terminal on the Red Sea, at the end of the 1,200-km East-West pipeline. No official source has named specific systems.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on September 27 that the assets are “strictly defensive” and rejected the idea that France is becoming a co-belligerent. “Since the beginning of the war in Iran we have deployed military assets to protect our allies, our partners. Have we been considered, even once, as belligerents? Never,” he said. The size of the mission, he added, will depend on “the need as expressed by the partner, on our own capabilities and on how the situation evolves”.

Reactions in Paris, and Macron’s Gulf tour

La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon had criticised the decision. “Troops in Saudi Arabia means settling into a theatre of war. If the base is hit, what will we do?” he said, calling for a vote in Parliament.

Macron will tour Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar from October 19 to 21, with energy security and freedom of navigation in Hormuz on the agenda.

France is not the only European country with a military presence to protect Saudi Arabia. The United Kingdom announced additional defence support on September 22, while Greece keeps a Patriot battery in the country, whose stay the KYSEA extended by a month, as covered in our report on the extension. Saudi facilities are under continuing attack, the latest hitting an Aramco building in Dhahran, as covered in our report on the Dhahran strike.