France Expands Hormuz Security Mission to 40 Nations

France's day was defined abroad by its biggest single push so far to convert Hormuz diplomacy into a standing military operation. President Emmanuel Macron's defence minister Catherine Vautrin and UK counterpart John Healey co-chaired a virtual meeting of defence ministers from more than 40 nations, the first ministerial-level session for a planned multinational mission to restore shipping confidence in the Strait of Hormuz. France has the nuclear-powered carrier Charles de Gaulle and its escort group in theatre — first announced May 6 — alongside Britain's Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon, ordered May 9. Macron insisted Paris had "never envisaged" a naval deployment inside the strait itself and rejected the idea of imposing tolls on vessels crossing it. Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned any foreign warship deployment would meet "a decisive and immediate response"; foreign-ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran's latest proposal — an end to the war, lifting of the US blockade and release of frozen assets — was "legitimate and generous", and Donald Trump rejected it as "totally unacceptable".

The operation itself sits inside a longer-running French realisation that the security ledger is being rebalanced without Washington. New SIPRI figures cited Tuesday showed US treaty allies — the 31 non-US NATO members plus Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines — collectively spent 111 percent of the US defence budget in purchasing-power terms in 2025, the first time the allied bloc has surpassed the United States; European rearmament drove the shift while the Pentagon budget fell 7.5 percent.

The domestic political track moved as fast. Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the Droite Républicaine group in the National Assembly, declared Bruno Retailleau the legitimate Les Républicains candidate for the 2027 presidential election after Retailleau drew 74 percent in the party vote, and stood his own candidacy down to consolidate the right. On the further-right flank Rassemblement National's Jordan Bardella laid out a comprehensive sovereigntist platform: prioritising national law over EU law on immigration and defence, a referendum on immigration, Schengen reform, an exit from EU electricity-price rules to leverage French nuclear power, and an end to wind-power subsidies. In a separate interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Bardella said he saw common ground with Chancellor Friedrich Merz on cutting bureaucracy, scrapping green regulation, and tightening migration — a direct courting of Berlin ahead of 2027.

The Senate's day produced its own marker on assisted dying: senators rejected the legalisation bill for the second time by voting down its key article, leaving the National Assembly — which has already passed it twice — to give the final word. Senate Republican leader Bruno Retailleau called for a referendum, saying the question should go to voters. The same chamber definitively adopted a separate bill strengthening access to palliative care.

The Hormuz closure continues to bite the home economy. Annual wholesale price negotiations between farmers and supermarkets closed against a backdrop of surging fuel and fertiliser costs from the Iran war, with the government calling for dialogue on cost-sharing. In response, farmers in southern France opened their own supermarket to sell fresh produce at lower margins, a direct workaround to the retail model and an acute signal of how the maritime conflict is showing up in input prices.

A separate domestic crisis surfaced in cybersecurity. Following April's €200 million emergency funding announcement after a major breach at the Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés (ANTS), recurrent breaches at La Poste, France Travail and ANTS are being industrialised by cybercriminals into sophisticated fraud schemes — including fake-bank-manager calls. A named victim, fitness coach Amaia, lost €8,000 to one such operation; investigators describe young operators earning €5,000–€10,000 a week and warn of spillover into physical violence, including fake police visits after a recent shooting.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival opened with a public political signal from the industry itself. Hundreds of French film figures, including Juliette Binoche, signed an open letter in Libération warning against the far-right's growing footprint in cinema and media, with billionaire Vincent Bolloré — owner of Canal+ — named directly. The letter framed the festival opening as a confrontation with Bolloré's expanding empire and its political reach.

On the policing front, a BBC investigation named the alleged smuggler behind the majority of small-boat Channel crossings from France to the UK as Kardo Muhammad Amen Jaf (alias Kardo Ranya), a 28-year-old Iraqi Kurd, who is reported to charge up to €17,000 per migrant and offer a "VIP" service; the investigation traced his network from migrant camps in northern France to Iraqi Kurdistan, and Jaf denied the allegations when confronted.

Finally, the WHO confirmed 11 hantavirus cases globally tied to the MV Hondius cruise outbreak, all among passengers or crew, with three deaths; the evacuation of all 122 people from Tenerife has been completed, with repatriation flights to over 20 countries. France's nationals were among those moved, and Paris remains in the bloc of states diverging on quarantine protocols as the WHO continues to suspect limited human-to-human transmission of the Andes strain.