Anglo-French Joint Expeditionary Task Force

Whilst Dave and Nicholas went public on this last November, I'm guessing the joint infrastructure is still very much 'aspirational'.

France-UK summit - France in the United Kingdom - La France au Royaume-Uni

Should we expect a re-run of Op Musketeer anytime soon ?

Suez Crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FP

 

Which was of course, ironically, very successful.

 

Indeed it did. Had it not been for the Soviets and their inconvenient missiles, President Eisenhower would probably have said to Eden and the French to "crack on".
(I wonder if the Gubmint ever did ferret out those communists and fellow travelers in the BBC who kept shining the TV klieg lights in Eden's face and eyes during his address to the nation? Cheeky buggers! )

 

So Dave, tell me how much (in these days of £22 light bulbs) how much it will cost to train and implant a French speaker/translator at Fireteam upwards levels then? Obviously they will go for the most expensive provider out there. Bound to save money long term...

 

No, no, no. They will put out a requirement for a French translation team but then due to budgetary constraints change the requirement to Spanish speaks. After pressing on with that for years they will decide after much advocacy that French speakers would indeed better suit the requirement. All the French speaker will charge double for being ****ed about and we will only be able to afford to have them work Tuesdays between 10:00 and 14:00 and Thursdays between 11:00-18:00.

After contracting those chaps for the next twenty years in some kind of perverse PFI deal the whole stilly idea will be abandoned. They will successfully file for breech of contract, all contractual requirements plus damages. You just watch.

 

A few recent examples of FRA/UK cooperation:

Last Summer, a FRA attack submarine was temporarily put under UK command in order to help UK subs track Russian subs around Faslane; this was confirmed by the FRA Navy CoS in this interview

Le Télégramme - France - Entretien avec l'amiral Forissier. "Prévoir l'imprévisible"

« Un sous-marin français est passé sous commandement britannique dans le grand Nord, pour surveiller de plus près les Russes. »

A UK Frigate was part of the French Task Force which just came back from supporting operations in Afghanistan from thr Indian Ocean.

There are currently some projects of France buying 4 US-made Reaper MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and 2 GCS with a view to integrating them with the RAF’s 39 Squadron in Creech AFB in the USA..

And that’s just for the past few months…

 

So JHF(Libya) may yet launch from the Mistral or the Tonnerre?

An intriguing thought...

"Honneur, Patrie, Valeur, Discipline" or "A l'eau, c'est l'heure".

 

Why not just join EUROCORPS?

 

And lets not forget the fine performance the Anglo-French force put up in the Crimean war. As balls-ups and useless wastes of lives go, it scored pretty high on the ****-up scale.

Wordsmith

 

Another, Royal, example…

Meanwhile, Prince Harry is being sent to the Alps to learn how to take on the Taliban in mountainous terrain.
He is eager to return to the front line and will do week-long training in his Apache attack helicopter – a skill he needs if he is to go back to the warzone.
Harry, 26, will be based at the Le Luc-Le Cannet Airport in southern France, a training facility for combat pilots.
An MoD source said: “Harry will fly up to four sorties a day – each lasting for up to two hours. Two will be at night.”


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