MANILA, Philippines – The French surveillance frigate Prairial made a port call at Cebu on Tuesday (October 22) and will be in the country until Friday (October 25) as part of its operational deployment in the Indo-Pacific, the Embassy of France to the Philippines said.
“The Prairial is a Floréal-class frigate, based in Papeete and belonging to the Armed Forces in French Polynesia,” the Embassy mentioned.
Dedicated to a wide range of missions, including sovereignty missions in French exclusive economic zones, humanitarian aid and cooperation, the Prairial is 94 meters long, has a crew of around 100, carries a Dauphin helicopter and regularly carries out missions in Asia.
“This stopover is one of many expressions of the concrete implementation of the letter of intent defining a roadmap for strengthening cooperation between the two countries, signed by Minister for the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on December 2, 2023,” the Embassy mentioned.
Lecornu visited the Philippines last December 2023 and met Teodoro for the signing of a letter of intent (LOI) on bilateral defense cooperation “aimed at strengthening the various aspects of the bilateral defense relationship, in areas of operational cooperation and support for the modernization of the Philippines’ Armed Forces."
