France deployed Dassault Rafale (Rafale) fighter jets over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday to protect its military installations after an Iranian drone struck a French naval facility in Abu Dhabi, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed.
France maintains roughly 900 personnel distributed across two permanent facilities in the UAE, the Mina Zayed naval base and the Al Dhafra air base near Abu Dhabi. Barrot said the Rafale jets had already flown over the weekend to counter Iranian drones and that ongoing airspace security operations over French bases were continuing.
A drone struck the French naval facility at Port Zayed on Sunday, damaging a hangar in the port area. No casualties were reported. Barrot said exchanges between French diplomatic and military officials were intensifying to determine how France could best defend against future attacks and protect its interests in the region.
France is also planning to send two additional frigates to the Red Sea to strengthen a European naval defensive mission that protects commercial ships from drone attacks by Iranian allies, though French authorities have neither confirmed nor denied those reports formally. Paris has also joined Greece in providing anti-missile and anti-drone systems to Cyprus following drone pressure on British bases there.
Barrot confirmed that France’s flagship aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle (CDG), remained in the North Atlantic as part of a previously scheduled multinational exercise and had not been redirected to the Mediterranean.
In Abu Dhabi, a separate drone struck a fuel tank terminal on Monday, causing a fire that did not affect operations. In the Fujairah emirate, debris from a drone interception ignited a fire at an oil industry zone on Tuesday, which was later contained. Technology company Amazon also confirmed that two of its data centres in the UAE were directly struck by drones, disrupting cloud services across parts of the Middle East.
The escalating drone campaign follows US and Israeli strikes on Iran on Saturday that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. European powers are now rapidly increasing protective measures for personnel and assets stationed across the Gulf.
