French troops storm seized vessel

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Member for

19 years 3 months

Posts: 284

French special forces have recaptured a cargo/passenger vessel that was hijacked to the Corsican port of Bastia by striking union workers.
Commandos abseiled to the deck of the Pascal Paoli from five helicopters as it came into port after being taken over in Marseille late on Tuesday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4288994.stm
Interesting.There's even a video of the assault.Question is,do the French have a naval Special Forces.What's it called?

Anyone got any decent photo's of this?

Original post

Member for

19 years 7 months

Posts: 214

Could well have been GIGN,the national counter-terrorism group as opposed to any kind of military special forces however,here's a link giving you a brief overview of French Special Ops, Click Here

Enjoy

Member for

19 years 6 months

Posts: 1,583

French special forces have recaptured a cargo/passenger vessel that was hijacked to the Corsican port of Bastia by striking union workers.
Commandos abseiled to the deck of the Pascal Paoli from five helicopters as it came into port after being taken over in Marseille late on Tuesday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4288994.stm
Interesting.There's even a video of the assault.Question is,do the French have a naval Special Forces.What's it called?

Anyone got any decent photo's of this?

It was in fact the GIGN who dealt with this situation as this was considered to be a hijacking. The Interior Ministry didn't feel they needed to activate any of the French military's special ops team. As a matter of fact, the GIGN is quite an impressive team which is rated as one of the best in the world. It has helped train new recruits for the FBI's HRT unit and will occasionally train with Delta Force squads (These units have been known to trade operational secrets although this is unconfirmed). GIGN is widely respected by the international SpecOps community.
The French Navy does have a special force, although it could be considered more of an equivalent to the USMC. There are several units such as the Commando Jaubert, Commando Hubert and a few more beyond the two I have just mentionned. The French Navy does have a unit manned by scuba divers which could be considered as an equivalent to the US Navy Seals.
I hope this helps!

Member for

19 years 3 months

Posts: 284

Thanks for the link & information,everyone.It's been informative.