''Jean Bart'' was a anti-air frigate of the French ''

Marine Nationale The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in th ...

''. She was the eighth vessel of the French Navy named after the privateer

Jean Bart Jean Bart (; ; 21 October 1650 – 27 April 1702) was a French naval commander and privateer. Early life Jean Bart was born in Dunkirk in 1650 to a seafaring family, the son of Jean-Cornil Bart (c. 1619-1668) who has been described variously a ...

. She was commissioned on 3 March 1991. ''Jean Bart'' was fitted with a number of types of prototype equipment which were later incorporated in the frigates. The vessel was withdrawn from service in August 2021.

Service history

On 12 April 2008, ''Jean Bart'' aided the capture of the pirates who had taken over the luxury yacht . She took part in

Operation Unified Protector Operation Unified Protector was a NATO operation in 2011 enforcing United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 concerning the Libyan Civil War and adopted on 26 February and 17 March 2011, respectively. These resolutions imposed ...

until she returned to her home port

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

in April 2011. In October 2014, ''Jean Bart'' entered the

US Fifth Fleet The Fifth Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy. It has been responsible for naval forces in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean since 1995 after a 48-year hiatus. It shares a commander and headq ...

and joined up with CTF 50 for

Opération Chammal Opération Chammal is a French military operation in Iraq and Syria launched to help curtail the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to support the Iraqi Army. Its name comes from the Shamal (''Chammal'' in French), a ...

. On 11 October 2019, ''Jean Bart'', accompanied by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

frigate , intercepted a suspicious

dhow Dhow ( ar, داو, translit=dāwa; mr, script=Latn, dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically spo ...

in the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

and seized of illegal narcotics. From 4 May to 1 June 2020, ''Jean Bart'' participated in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

Operation Irini The European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation IRINI (EUNAVFOR MED IRINI) was launched on 31 March 2020 with the primary mission to enforce the United Nations arms embargo to Libya due to the Second Libyan Civil War. Operation IRINI is a ...

, enforcing the arms embargo on Libya. The frigate returned to Toulon from her deployment to the Indian Ocean in March 2021 and had been expected to decommission in Spring 2021 to be replaced by the FREMM-class frigate . However, it was subsequently announced that the frigate would remain in service temporarily and deploy on one final mission to Greece in April to demonstrate her capabilities in the context of a French offer to transfer her to the Hellenic Navy. After the Greek Government elected not to acquire her, ''Jean Bart'' was decommissioned on 31 August 2021.

References

Frigates of France Cassard-class frigates Ships built in France 1988 ships {{France-mil-ship-stub