From March 17 to 19, 2025, the Naval Action Force (FAN) organized an advanced mine countermeasure training exercise under multiple threats, called Salamine, off the coast of Toulon.
The exercise involved two tripartite mine hunters ( CMT), the Lyre and the Céphée , the multi-mission frigate with reinforced air defense capability (FREMM DA) Lorraine , as well as a Caïman Marine helicopter and Rafale Marine.
In this scenario, the two CMTs were tasked with opening mined maritime communication routes to navigation, under the protection of the FREMM DA against multiple threats, materialized by surface drones, aerial drones and aircraft.
The two mine hunters had to detect and deal with different types of practice mines (moored mines and bottom mines, some of which were stealthy) while the multi-mission frigate provided force protection, detecting and then neutralizing the threats.
The aim of this exercise was to reproduce a realistic situation in order to train our units to operate jointly in a context of denial of access and credible threats.