France to send soldiers to Saudi Arabia to help secure energy sites
President Emmanuel Macron framed the move as one part of efforts that France is making to ensure energy security and fight for lower gas prices at home.
France will send troops and other military assets to Saudi Arabia to help protect critical energy sites along the Red Sea that have come under fire from the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, the French president said Thursday.
France will send “soldiers, radars, and defense systems” to help secure energy infrastructure in the coastal city of Yanbu, according to an agreement the two countries sealed Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on public broadcaster France 2. “Not to engage in any conflicts but to protect this site,” Macron said.
He did not rule out the possibility that additional military assistance might be provided as the situation evolves.
Macron framed the move as one part of efforts that France is making to ensure energy security and fight for lower gas prices at home amid the war started by the United States and Israel with Iran more than six months ago. That conflict has left the Strait of Hormuz, a key international waterway for oil and gas, effectively blockaded.
In recent weeks, the Iran-allied Houthi militia has repeatedly attacked Saudi Arabia, threatening its ability to export oil from Red Sea ports. The French president’s pledge came after what appeared to be one of the largest such attacks since the long-running conflict spiraled back into war.
The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said Thursday that it had shot down six ballistic missiles aimed at Yanbu and Taif, another Saudi city. Saudi authorities issued alerts Thursday warning of potential attacks in cities across the kingdom.
For more than a decade, Yemen’s civil war has pitted the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim group aligned with Iran, against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia. A truce was reached in 2022, but the conflict recently reignited, opening a second front in the Middle East after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. The Houthis have accused the Saudis of launching hundreds of strikes in the renewed fighting.
The Houthis captured the strategic port of Mokha from the Saudi-backed government earlier this month, giving them control of Yemen’s west coast and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, a route that Saudi Arabia has relied on to move oil while the Strait of Hormuz is choked.
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
