[4][5][6] The French Navy is capable of operating globally and conducting expeditionary missions, maintaining a significant overseas presence.

As of 2021, the French Navy employed 44,000 personnel (37,000 military and 7,000 civilian), more than 180 ships, 200 aircraft, and six commandos units;[9] as of 2014, its reserve element numbered roughly 48,000.

[12] He was succeeded by his protégé, Jean Baptiste Colbert, who introduced the first code of regulations of the French Navy and established the original naval dockyards in Brest and Toulon.

The Navy regrouped and rebuilt, and within 15 years it was eager to join the fray when France intervened in the American Revolutionary War.

Within less than a decade, however, the Navy was decimated by the French Revolution when large numbers of veteran officers were dismissed or executed for their noble lineage.

When Napoleon was crowned Emperor in 1804, he attempted to restore the Navy to a position that would enable his plan for an invasion of England.

After Napoleon's fall in 1815, the long era of Anglo-French rivalry on the seas began to close, and the Navy became more of an instrument for expanding the French colonial empire.

Beginning in 1845, a five-year Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata was imposed on Argentina over trade rights.

The Emperor Napoleon III was determined to follow an even stronger foreign policy than his predecessors, and the Navy was involved in a multitude of actions around the world.

In the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Navy imposed an effective blockade of Germany, but events on land proceeded at such a rapid pace that it was superfluous.

In Vietnam, the Navy helped wage the Tonkin Campaign which included the Battle of Thuận An, and it later participated in the Franco-Siamese conflict of 1893.

During the latter part of the century, French officers developed the so-called Jeune École (Young School) theory that emphasized the use of small, cheap torpedo boats to destroy expensive battleships, coupled with long-range commerce raiders to attack an opponent's merchant fleet.

[15] Despite that innovation, the general development of the French Navy slowed down in the beginning of the 20th century as the naval arms race between Germany and Great Britain grew in intensity.

[12] In December 1916, during the Noemvriana events, French warships also bombarded Athens, trying to force the pro-German government of Greece to change its policies.

[16] The French Navy also played an important role in countering Germany's U-boat campaign by regularly patrolling the seas and escorting convoys.

[12] Between the World Wars, the Navy modernized and expanded significantly, even in the face of limitations set by the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty.

[12] New additions included the heavy and fast Fantasque class "super-destroyers", the Richelieu-class battleships, and the submarine Surcouf which was the largest and most powerful of its day.

Concerned that the German Navy might somehow gain control of the ships, the British mounted an attack on Mers-el-Kébir, the Algerian city where many of them were harbored.

The incident poisoned Anglo-French relations, leading to Vichy reprisals and a full-scale naval battle at Casablanca in 1942 when the Allies invaded French North Africa.

In addition, the navy shares or leases bases in foreign locales such as Abu Dhabi, Dakar and Djibouti.

However, the French programme had been delayed several times for budgetary reasons and the result was priority being given to the more exportable FREMM project.

They undertake the navy's offshore patrol duties, the protection of French naval bases and territorial waters, and can also provide low-end escort capabilities to any oceangoing task force.

The 2013 French White Paper on Defence and National Security cancelled the long-planned new aircraft carrier and a possible fourth Mistral-class amphibious assault ship.

The cancellation of the third and fourth Horizon destroyers meant that the last two FREMM hulls, which entered service between 2021 and 2023, are fitted out as FREDA air-defence ships to replace the Cassard class.

[26] DCNS has shown a FREMM-ER concept to meet this requirement, emphasising ballistic missile defence with the Thales Sea Fire 500 AESA radar.

[27] Industrial considerations mean that the funds for FREMMs 9-11 are now being spent on five more exportable Frégate de Défense et d'Intervention (FDI, "intermediate size frigates") from 2024 to supplement, and ultimately replace, the La Fayette class, three of which are being upgraded with new sonars to operate into the early 2030s.

In October 2018, the French Ministry of Defence launched an 18-month study for €40 million for the eventual future replacement of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle beyond 2030.