Every campaign the French Air and Space Force has fought, 1939 to today
Newest first. France has fought more expeditionary air campaigns since 1960 than any European air force except the British, and has gone first in more of them.
Fifteen campaigns, newest first, from the Battle of France to a drone shot down over Latvia in June 2026. Open a row for what the air campaign was actually like, every type flown, and where each figure comes from — including the ones France has never published.
| Conflict | Years | Against | Main aircraft | Sorties | Aircraft lost | |
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| NATO eastern flank air policingMission Aigle, enhanced Air Policing, Baltic Air PolicingArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2022-present | Russia (unacknowledged airspace violations and drone incursions) | Dassault Rafale C, Dassault Mirage 2000-5F, Dassault Mirage 2000Dand 2 more | — | 0 | |
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Armed air policing and deterrence on NATO’s eastern border after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Rafale and Mirage 2000 detachments rotating through Romanian and Baltic bases. French fighters have held quick reaction alert on NATO’s eastern flank continuously since 2022, first over Romania under Mission Aigle and then in rotations through the Baltic states. The work is mostly interception of Russian aircraft flying without flight plans, but it has turned kinetic: on 8 June 2026 two French Rafale destroyed a drone that had crossed into Latvian airspace from the east and was flying over an uninhabited area — the first time in the modern era that French fighters have shot down an aircraft over European territory. In the same month France sent eight Rafale, three Mirage 2000D and an E-3F to Sweden for Ramstein Flag 26, an exercise of more than 150 combat aircraft from 17 nations. Outcome Continuing. France took the lead nation role in Baltic Air Policing for the first time in 2026, deploying four Rafale and about a hundred personnel to Šiauliai in Lithuania from 28 March 2026 for four months alongside a Portuguese contingent. France publishes weekly operational summaries but no cumulative figures for scrambles, interceptions or hours on the eastern flank, so no totals are given here.
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| Opération Chammalthe Levant campaign against Islamic StateArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2014-present | Islamic State | Dassault Rafale C, Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Mirage 2000Nand 5 more | — | 0 | |
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French contribution to the international coalition against Islamic State: strike, armed reconnaissance and training of Iraqi forces, flown from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and at times from the aircraft carrier. Chammal began on 19 September 2014 with Rafale reconnaissance over Iraq and grew into France’s longest continuous air campaign. At its height French aircraft flew from Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates, from a deployed air base in Jordan and from the carrier Charles de Gaulle, dropping GBU-12s, AASM guided bombs and SCALP cruise missiles. After the November 2015 Paris attacks the tempo rose sharply. Since the territorial defeat of Islamic State the campaign has shrunk to armed overwatch, training and joint missions with Iraqi F-16 crews. Outcome Continuing at low intensity. The deployed air base in Jordan and the Rafale squadron at Al Dhafra remain the French contribution, now largely advisory and supporting Iraqi forces. France publishes weekly rather than cumulative figures for Chammal, and the figures it does publish cover the whole joint force, not the air force alone. Any total sortie or munition count for the campaign should be treated as an estimate.
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| Opération Hamiltonthe Syria chemical weapons strikesArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2018 | Syria | Dassault Rafale C, Dassault Mirage 2000-5F, Boeing E-3F Sentryand 1 more | — | 0 | |
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A single co-ordinated night strike with the United States and the United Kingdom against Syrian chemical weapons research and storage sites after the Douma attack. Hamilton was the most complex single French air operation since Libya: a night package launched from metropolitan France and the Mediterranean, timed to the minute with American and British strikes, against three targets associated with the Syrian chemical weapons programme. France committed cruise missiles from both aircraft and surface ships, the first operational use of the naval MdCN. Outcome The strike was completed on the night of 13 to 14 April 2018 and not repeated. Weapon counts were released by the French chief of the defence staff at the time but individual aircraft assignments were not; the detail here follows the official briefing.
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| Opération Barkhanethe Sahel campaignArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2014-2022 | Groupe de soutien à l’islam et aux musulmans and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara | Dassault Rafale C, Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Mirage 2000Cand 6 more | — | 1 | |
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Regional counter-terrorism across five Sahel states, with fighters, drones and transports operating from N’Djamena, Niamey and Gao. Barkhane replaced Serval in August 2014 and turned a national intervention into a regional one across an area the size of Europe. The air component was what made it possible: Reapers watching, Mirage 2000Ds and Rafales striking, C-160s and later A400Ms moving everything, and tankers keeping fighters over targets a thousand kilometres from their airfield. France carried out its first armed drone strike from Niamey in December 2019. Militarily the air force did what was asked of it; politically the operation ended with a run of coups and expulsions that removed France from the region entirely. Outcome Ended in failure of the political objective. France withdrew from Mali by 15 August 2022, from Burkina Faso in February 2023 and from Niger at the end of 2023. France did not publish cumulative sortie, strike or munition figures for Barkhane, and casualty figures quoted here are for French forces as a whole rather than the air force. Enemy casualty claims from the operation are contested and are not reproduced.
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| Opération Servalthe intervention in MaliArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2013-2014 | Ansar Dine, AQIM and MUJAO | Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Rafale B/C, Dassault Mirage F1CRand 4 more | 970 | 0 | |
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Emergency intervention to stop an armed column advancing on Bamako, followed by an offensive to retake northern Mali. Serval is the operation French airmen cite when they argue for sovereign capability. On 11 January 2013 four Mirage 2000Ds flew from N’Djamena in Chad and struck a column moving south on Bamako, with no allied permission needed and no allied assets involved. Two days later four Rafales flew from Saint-Dizier direct to Gao — roughly 3,000 nautical miles and nine hours with multiple refuellings — struck targets and recovered to N’Djamena. Britain and the United States provided strategic airlift and tankers once the operation was under way, but the first strikes were entirely French. Outcome Militarily successful: the advance on Bamako was stopped within days and the northern towns retaken within weeks. The operation was folded into Barkhane in August 2014. Sortie and strike figures come from official statements at different points in the campaign and are not a single audited total.
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| Opération Harmattanthe Libya intervention, 2011Armée de l’air et de l’espace | 2011 | Libya | Dassault Rafale B/C, Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Mirage 2000-5Fand 5 more | 5,600 | 0 | |
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Enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1973: protection of civilians, no-fly zone and strikes against Libyan government forces. France fired the first shots of the whole intervention. On 19 March 2011, hours before the first American and British cruise missiles, Rafales that had taken off from Saint-Dizier struck government vehicles outside Benghazi. Over the campaign French forces flew about 25 per cent of all NATO sorties, 35 per cent of offensive missions and roughly 20 per cent of strikes, dropping 950 GBU laser-guided bombs, 225 AASM powered guided bombs and 15 SCALP cruise missiles and destroying some 1,000 targets from the air. The whole operation cost France between 300 and 350 million euros. Outcome The Gaddafi government fell in August 2011 and the campaign ended on 31 October. The political outcome in Libya was a collapse into civil war that has not been repaired. The sortie breakdown is the French official one and covers the air force, the navy and army helicopters together. Libyan casualty figures are disputed and are not reproduced here.
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| AfghanistanOpérations Héraclès, Pamir and SerpentaireArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 2001-2014 | Taliban and al-Qaeda | Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Mirage F1CR, Dassault Rafale B/Cand 3 more | — | 0 | |
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Close air support, armed reconnaissance and airlift for French and ISAF ground forces, flown from Dushanbe, Manas, Kandahar and the aircraft carrier. France flew combat aircraft in Afghanistan for more than a decade, from Manas in Kyrgyzstan, Dushanbe in Tajikistan and finally Kandahar, and from the carrier Charles de Gaulle in the Indian Ocean. It was the campaign in which the Mirage 2000D and the Rafale learned to do close air support to American standards, with the digital targeting, data links and rules of engagement that came with it, and in which the Harfang drone first flew French operational surveillance in 2009. Outcome French combat aircraft withdrew in 2012 and the last French forces left in 2014. France ran three separate named operations in the theatre over thirteen years and never published a single combined air figure. The personnel figure is for all French forces, not the air force.
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| Operation Allied ForceKosovo, 1999 — Opération TridentArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 1999 | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | Dassault Mirage 2000C, Dassault Mirage 2000D, Dassault Mirage F1CRand 4 more | — | 0 | |
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The second-largest national contribution to the NATO air campaign, flying strike, reconnaissance and air defence from Italy and from the carrier. Kosovo was the campaign that showed France both what it could do and what it could not. French aircraft flew the second-largest European share of the sorties and were among the few European contingents able to deliver laser-guided weapons in quantity and to run their own reconnaissance and airborne early warning. It also exposed the gaps — in suppression of enemy air defences, in all-weather precision, in secure data links — that drove the Rafale programme and the modernisation of the Mirage 2000D. Outcome Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo in June 1999 after 78 days of bombing. National sortie shares for Allied Force vary between NATO, French and academic accounts; the figure given is approximate and no precise French total is published.
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| BosniaDeny Flight, Deliberate Force and Opération CrécerelleArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 1993-1995 | Army of Republika Srpska | Dassault Mirage 2000C, Dassault Mirage 2000N, Dassault Mirage F1CRand 4 more | — | 1 | |
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No-fly zone enforcement, close air support for UN forces and, in August and September 1995, the air campaign that forced the Bosnian Serb leadership to the table. The Balkans were France’s return to European air combat after forty years, and they produced its only combat loss of the modern era. On the first night of Deliberate Force, 30 August 1995, Captain Frédéric Chiffot and Lieutenant José Souvignet had just released three bombs on an ammunition dump near Pale when their Mirage 2000N was hit. General Jean-Philippe Douin, the French chief of the defence staff, collected them personally at Zvornik at two o’clock in the afternoon on 18 December; they were flown to Villacoublay and met by President Chirac. Outcome Deliberate Force ended on 20 September 1995 and was followed by the Dayton agreement in November. The missile that brought the aircraft down has never been formally identified; a 9K32 Strela-2 is the usual attribution.
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| Opération Daguetthe Gulf War, 1991Armée de l’air et de l’espace | 1990-1991 | Iraq | Jaguar A, Dassault Mirage 2000C, Dassault Mirage F1CRand 2 more | — | 1 | |
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French air contribution to the coalition: battlefield interdiction and close air support with Jaguars, air defence and escort with Mirage 2000s and reconnaissance with Mirage F1CRs. Daguet was the first time French combat aircraft operated inside a very large allied air campaign run by someone else, and it was uncomfortable. French Jaguars flew low-level attacks on the opening day and several came home with holes; the Mirage F1 had to be used carefully because Iraq flew the same type. The experience pushed France towards precision weapons, towards secure interoperable communications and, indirectly, towards rejoining NATO’s integrated military command in 2009. Outcome Kuwait was liberated by 28 February 1991. French sortie and munition totals for Daguet were never published in an audited form; figures circulating in secondary sources vary widely and are not reproduced here.
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| ChadOpérations Tacaud, Manta and ÉpervierArmée de l’air et de l’espace | 1978-2014 | Libya and Chadian rebel movements | Jaguar A, Dassault Mirage F1C/CR, Dassault Mirage 2000C/Dand 3 more | — | 1 | |
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Successive interventions to hold a line against Libyan-backed forces, with fighters, transports and tankers based at N’Djamena. Chad was where the French air force did its expeditionary apprenticeship. Tacaud in 1978, Manta in 1983 and Épervier from 1986 kept French combat aircraft permanently on the ground in central Africa for nearly three decades, and N’Djamena became the airfield from which every subsequent French Sahel operation was launched — including the opening strikes of Serval in Mali in January 2013. The base went back to Chad on 30 January 2025. Outcome Épervier ended in 2014 when its assets were folded into Barkhane. France left Chad entirely on 30 January 2025. Operations in Chad ran under several names with different mandates and rules of engagement; grouping them is a convenience. No consolidated air figures exist.
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| The Algerian War1954–1962Armée de l’air | 1954-1962 | Front de libération nationale | North American T-6 Texan, Douglas B-26 Invader, Republic F-84F Thunderstreakand 6 more | — | — | |
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Counter-insurgency: armed reconnaissance, close air support, helicopter assault and transport across a territory four times the size of France. Algeria taught the French air force helicopter assault, forward air control and the armed light aircraft — the T-6 Texan with rockets was the workhorse, not the jet — and it built the habit of operating from rough strips a long way from anywhere. It also broke something: four generals, including a former air force chief of staff, attempted a putsch in Algiers in April 1961, and the service spent years afterwards rebuilding its relationship with the Republic. Outcome Algeria became independent on 5 July 1962. Casualty figures for the Algerian War are politically contested in both countries. No French air force loss total is given here because none is reliably published.
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| Opération MousquetaireSuez, 1956Armée de l’air | 1956 | Egypt | Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, Dassault Mystère IVA, Nord Noratlasand 1 more | — | — | |
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Anglo-French operation to seize the Suez Canal, with French fighters flying from Cyprus and, covertly, from Israeli airfields in Israeli markings, and Noratlas transports dropping paratroops on Port Said. The French contribution was two separate things. The 3e escadre de chasse flew F-84F Thunderstreaks openly from Akrotiri in Cyprus with squadrons Navarre and Ardennes and pilots from the Champagne. At the same time eighteen Mystère IVAs from the Cigognes and the Alsace and eighteen F-84Fs drawn from the 1re escadre were based clandestinely at Ramat David and Lod in Israel, flying under Israeli markings to protect Israeli cities and escort Israeli ground attack missions. Noratlas transports dropped French paratroops on Port Said on 5 November. Outcome Military objectives were largely achieved and then abandoned: American and Soviet pressure forced a ceasefire on 6 November 1956 and a withdrawal by December. The covert French deployment to Israel was denied for years and the unit details come from French veterans’ and official historical accounts rather than contemporaneous records.
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| The Indochina War1946–1954Armée de l’air | 1946-1954 | Viet Minh | Douglas C-47 Dakota, Junkers Ju 52, Douglas B-26 Invaderand 3 more | — | — | |
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Transport, resupply, paratroop drops, close air support and bombing across a theatre with almost no roads, flown with American and surplus British aircraft. Indochina was fought with whatever France could get: captured German Ju 52s, British Spitfires, American C-47s, Bearcats and B-26 Invaders supplied under military aid. The air force could supply a garrison but it could not break a siege. At Dien Bien Phu, 300 kilometres from the nearest airfield and ringed by anti-aircraft guns dragged through the jungle, transports were shot down on approach and the drop zones shrank until resupply fell into Viet Minh hands. The lesson French officers drew was about reach and about dependence: the aircraft were all somebody else’s. Outcome Dien Bien Phu fell on 7 May 1954 and the Geneva accords ended French Indochina in July. Loss figures for Indochina vary widely between sources and mix air force, naval aviation and civil contract crews. None is reproduced here.
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| The Battle of France1939–1940Armée de l’air | 1939-1940 | Germany and Italy | Morane-Saulnier MS.406, Curtiss H-75 Hawk, Dewoitine D.520and 4 more | — | — | |
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Air defence, reconnaissance and bombing against the German offensive of 10 May 1940, flown by a service caught halfway through re-equipment. The Armée de l’air of May 1940 was not short of courage and was not, by 10 May, short of aircraft in absolute terms. It was short of modern ones in the right places, short of spares, short of a workable command system, and it was still receiving the Dewoitine D.520 in ones and twos when the offensive began. The Curtiss H-75 groups, flying an American aircraft bought in a hurry, did better against the Bf 109E than anything else France had. On 14 May a formation of obsolete Amiot 143 night bombers was sent against the Meuse bridges in daylight; most did not come back. Outcome Defeat in six weeks. The armistice was signed on 22 June 1940 and the service split between Vichy and the Free French. Claims and losses for May and June 1940 were never reconciled and remain contested eighty-five years later. Neither is quantified here.
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Nothing matches that search.
Every figure, checked
- Ministère des Armées: L’histoire de l’armée de l’Air et de l’Espacefounding dates, the law of 2 July 1934, the 11 September 2020 renaming, 1940 and the nuclear component
- Ministère des Armées: MQ-9 ReaperBlock 5 ER standard from 19 December 2024, basing at Cognac, first GBU-12 drops in France
- Ministère des Armées: Baltic Air Policing 26, police du ciel sur le flanc est de l’Europefour Rafale to Šiauliai from 28 March 2026 for four months, France as lead nation for the first time
- Ministère des Armées: Point de situation des opérations, 4 au 11 juin 2026the 8 June 2026 drone shoot-down over Latvia, Ramstein Flag 26 contribution, Chammal weekly sortie figures
- Ministère des Armées: Mission conjointe entre les Rafale français de la base aérienne projetée au Levant et les pilotes de chasse irakienscurrent shape of Opération Chammal
- Zone Militaire (opex360): L’opération Harmattan en chiffres5,600 sorties, 27,000 hours, munitions expended, shares of NATO effort, cost
Figures verified 2026-09-13. Back to the French Air and Space Force.