The High Seas Patrollers (PHM) are multi-purpose combat units which can contribute to all territorial maritime surveillance and defense and fisheries policing missions.
PHM Commander Birot has embarked nearly a hundred sailors in training activities including Ivorian riflemen during the operational training course of the patrol boat Espérance, officers of 10 different nationalities fromthe National School with a regional vocation (ENVR) of Tica in Equatorial Guinea, students from the Naval Training Center of Port-Gentil in Gabon or even Beninese, Gabonese and Ivorian officers for long-term embarkations.
The teams played pirates and arms dealers
The French patrol boat also participated in two major multinational exercises: Obangame Express 2024 and MEGALOPS.
These exercises made it possible to train teams from 5 different countries by successively playing pirates, drug or arms traffickers, offending fishermen, a polluting vessel and a ship in distress.
He contributed twice, at the start and end of deployment, to the training course for the brand new Ivorian patrol vessel Espérance.
Fully integrated into Yaoundé’s maritime security architecture, the Birot carried out several patrols of fisheries monitoring which allowed it to report numerous cases of suspected illegal fishing off the African coast.
This deployment was marked by two particular operations: on the one hand, a mission of fight against drug trafficking carried out in support of Ghanaas well as the rescue of 7 Angolan fishermen, adrift for around ten days.
Operation Corymbe
The French Navy deploys one or two French vessels almost permanently supported by a maritime patrol aircraft in the Gulf of Guinea as part of Operation Corymbe. She thus completes the French system in West Africa in participating in the maritime aspect of operational cooperation. By its presence in the area, France participates in the development of maritime security architecture resulting from the Yaoundé process. Furthermore, this deployment is also part of the concept of coordinated maritime presence, supported by the European Union.
