USNI News French Carrier Strike Group Begins 2021 Deployment French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle sets on Feb. 21 2021. French Navy Photo The French Navy’s (Marine Nationale) carrier strike group set sail on Sunday for a four-month operational deployment called Clemenceau 21. Aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (R 91) and its escorts will operate in the Eastern Mediterranean for several months before sailing to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf and then returning home to France in June. A focus of the Clemenceau 21 mission will be the fight against terrorism. Mission Clemenceau 21 follows a similar deployment that took place in 2019. According to the French Navy, the 2021 deployment will repeat many of the major cooperation exercises that took place in 2019. The program also demonstrates continuity with the 2019 mission in that the CSG will take a similar path; will pursue the same objectives of security and the defense of freedom of action in these strategic areas; and will have the same cooperative dynamic with allies in the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia and India.