Toulon’s Port, Europe’s largest Military Base, under tight Security | SLICE EXPERTS | FULL DOC

Toulon Naval Base is home to the pinnacle of the French Navy. It gathers 70% of the nation’s fleet tonnage. A real “city within a city”, the naval base employs 23,000 workers on a daily basis.
Toulon’s harbour is exceptional: with a surface area of 1,500 hectares, three quarters of its perimeter is bordered by shores and benefits from natural protection against sea swells. An ultra strategic geographical situation which has always aroused envy – the port has survived through the centuries, withstanding sieges and major conflicts, and has been equipped throughout its history with a cutting-edge defensive system made up of 50 massive forts: the famous Toulon forts.
Constantly attacked but always capable of rising from its ashes, Toulon’s base is now more active than ever and honours its past by looking to the future through the building of fortifications and ships at the forefront of technology.

Documentary: Inside Toulon Arsenal, Bastion Of The Mediterranean
Directed by: Juliette Desbois
Production: ZED for RMC Découverte

#documentary #freedocumentary #experts #toulon #war #protection #france #navy #military #port #europe #terrorism

[Music] on a February morning the shalal comes into Port the French aircraft carrier is returning after a week’s training on the high seas helped by two tugs and some pushers it’s maneuvering to Mo at its dedicated K in its Home Port the naval base of tulong on a site covering some 268 hectars the French navy houses the majority of its battle Fleet here with 3,427 KM of Coastline the French Mainland has four Naval ports breast shour laon and the biggest tulon in Southeastern France it’s the number one French base the number one European base it is home to 70% of the tonnage of the French navy so it is of major importance the French navy has stationed its most impressive vessels here because this port has some exceptional qualities firstly the city is located on the shore of the Mediterranean a highly strategic area the naval action force has units permanently deployed there it’s a threat zone because there are Mediterranean countries which are at war in Syria for example there are regions of instability such as Libya and then there are threats or conflicts which seem far from the Mediterranean but whose effects can reach our Shores 1,500 hectar of water made up of a small Harbor and a large Harbor a break water of 1300 M protects the entrance to the military Port the port is sheltered from The mistal Wind by the hill of sea to the West it also has natural protection from the swell thanks to the San MRE Peninsula between the rone and the Italian border it’s the only Harbor that is well sheltered closed around practically 3/4 of its perimeter T’s very deep Bay allows it to receive very big ships there’s a depth of around 10 m guaranteed at all points the deepest points go down as much as 40 m but safe navigation can be assured to around 10 m tulong is one of only two ports in France along with breast to offer the advantage of such depth there are only about 10 such ports in the world the naval base is home to France’s nuclear powered attack submarine Fleet destined for protection and intelligence missions 5° to your left today today tulong hosts six of them we have the best units the biggest units and the most effective units in the French navy 3 Straight Ahead this place is being modernized all the time this is also where three mistal class assault ships are stationed these are amphibious helicopter carriers these Giants of the sea can deploy a full Airborne force of combat helicopters they are also capable of turning into a sort of floating Port sending large landing craft to [Music] land go go go tulong is also home to three of the Navy’s new FRS multi-mission frigs with one of the greatest strike capabilities in Europe there are also anti-submarine and air defense [Music] frigates but the Jewel of the Navy in tulon is indisputably the shalal the only nuclear powerered aircraft carrier in Europe This Colossus with a length of 261 M can cover 1,000 km per day from its floating Runway planes can be launched at nearly 300 100 kmph in less than 2 seconds it’s 40,000 tons of not very discreet diplomacy but sometimes it’s good not to be discreet because there are no hidden intentions the aircraft carrier is a powerful political and strategic instrument carrying tactical nuclear weapons it has special protection measures when it is in Port it is in the H sdz the highly sensitive Defense Zone it’s illegal to enter this Zone the hsz means we’re dealing with nuclear material for example when you change the nuclear core of the shal you’re transporting nuclear material and you don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands and we have to employ Force to immediately halt any intrusion without being limited to self-defense given its strategic importance the military Port is one of the best protected sites in France [Music] these are the naval base’s first line of defense Fus Sailors around 250 keep watch at Tong guys go on ahead 24 hours a day these armed and highly trained combat units Patrol the Waters of the port of the objective is to defend the naval base for example to detect any threats and protect the ships that might mean checking someone isn’t working on a hall who shouldn’t be there and that there are no suspect vessels we provide dissuasion we show we’re there checking everything is all right it’s true that the military Port today the biggest in Europe is under great threat the danger today is Terrorism the state can be targeted because it’s the state the Navy may be attacked because it carries out operations in the Middle East against salafist and jihadist groups so we could fear milous acts such fears are well- founded in 2015 a man planned to attack Sailors at the naval base with a knife convicted of association with offenders in relation to attack terrorist Enterprise he was sentenced to 10 years prison to prevent any intrusion from the land the naval base is entirely surrounded by a protective wall and barbed wire to enter the military zone one first has to pass this yellow metal barrier which protects against suicide Vehicles it is capable of stopping a bus Sailors stand guard in front of each of the three gates whenever a gate is opened armed people are there ready to respond train to stop a large scale intrusion to stop any malicious act from the [Music] start but how would they prevent an attack from the sea two types of vessels must be protected as a priority because they are nuclear powered the aircraft carrier and the six sub Marines the solution is this floating barrier which surrounds the submarine Zone the metal barrier is made up of around 20 platforms each weighing 1 ton measuring 8 m long and 4 M wide they are linked by Steel cables if a suicide boat came toward a vessel at full speed its Hull would be torn open by the cables and it would be stopped dead this system is also used in the United States and Israel in the meantime this type of barrier is only used for the submarines in the future it will be rolled out across the whole Naval Base this is what the military Port might look like we have to show no weaknesses I compare it to the automobile sector today you have cars that break very well which have abs so why improve it it’s improved because now there are cars which when they see a pedestrian who the driver hasn’t seen break automatically we have an approach of continual Improvement the obsession with protecting tulong is nothing new because of its strategic position the port has frequently come under attack ever since the Middle Ages tulong was then just a small fishing and trading Port but it was already the target of plunderers and barbarians to counter this threat the people of tulon barricaded themselves in the city at first it was a simple wooden Palisade then in the 13th century this wooden fence fell down and they built stone walls not very high but nonetheless quite dissuasive in case of invasion the walls of the rampart back then were about 10 m high and 3 m wide at the base they were crenelated and had Arrow slits the city could be accessed through four Gates on land and a fifth open to the Sea each was topped with a defensive tower for 270 years until the start of the 16th century the walls ensured the safety of the city through thick and thin but the port itself had no protection protction and this despite the fact that enemy vessels coming from the Mediterranean were more fearsome than ever the entrance to the port had to be secured this was in response to a demand by the people of tulong who sought protection from raids by Barber Pirates but also against the backdrop of the Italian Wars the year is 1514 the place chosen to secure the port is here at the tip of the P de just at the entrance to the small Harbor that was the closest point to which all navigation entering ton would have to pass Ton’s first fortification was built on the Rock The Royal Tower also known as the great tower today it still overlooks the entrance of the small Harbor and from its walkways one can see the most modern battleships entering the naval base this circular Cannon tower has walls 7 m thick at the base and 4 M at the top it was built so close to the water because the range of cannons was relatively weak so they had to be positioned close to the Target upon which they fired this Tower is a huge cylinder 60 m in diameter inside of which is another cylinder where the key elements of the structure are located if a naval bombardment destroys the outer envelope the inner core containing the powder water and the chapel would remain intact so there are these two successive envelopes like Russian dolls which allows the outer envelope to take blows while the inner Fort could fight on in terms of artillery to confront warships arriving from the sea the designers of the royal Tower ensured it was ready for everything the artillery was positioned on two superimposed floors on the Upper Floor 10 m above the level of the sea the Cannons fired into the Mast of any boats trying to force a passage on the lower floor at water level simultaneous fire into the ship’s Halls was designed to sink them the advantage of the fort over the ship is that allowing for the movement of the water they say that a cannon on land is worth three cannons at Sea with the swell the ship has a lesser capacity to fire on a Target however a ship can align Firepower of several dozen cannons to port or starboard to which the fort cannot respond so over the course of the centuries the superiority shifted in favor of the sea over the land but the Royal Tower could count on one major advantage these huge Stones around the gun batteries known as bage Stones back then these jutting round Stones sent a terrifying signal to a naval enemy in fortifications the symbolic and ostentatious element is absolutely key to the actual Effectiveness the boss Stones serve no practical purpose but look very imposing it has a very dissuasive effect but soon one defensive structure would not be enough so in 1636 just opposite the Royal Tower the bag Tower was built 50 years later they were joined by the aget fort which still belongs to the Navy the port was then well and truly protected since the cannons in each Fort had an effective range of around 800 M they covered all points with their fire if you put yourself in the place of the captain of a sailing ship trying to enter the small Harbor in tulong he has to cross a curtain in which he knows that there are 80 cannons facing him so it’s a relatively hazardous maneuver for the next three centuries the port of tulong grew continuously to become today the leading employer in the region 23,000 people work here including military staff but also civilians in the defense and Industrial sectors every day this huge Workforce enters the base which operates like a town in its own right this comprises transport infrastructure with 30 km of roads and three internal bus lines housing for the Sailor is dotted all over the site there is a Barracks with around 100 Naval fire crew on standby to intervene on warships there’s even a gas station for military [Music] vehicles there’s a medical center with around 20 doctors nearby is a dry cleaner for the sailor’s uniforms great thank you so much ma’ to keep in shape 30 seconds there’s a sports complex with running track and pool today the crew of the shalal is undergoing tests before heading out on a mission stop 3 minutes 3 seconds in the middle of the base Sailors on leave can enjoy Leisure facilities such as a movie theater there’s even a chapel catering to four different religions it’s a town in every sense which operates Round the Clock with all infrastructure and Facilities of a town the naval base is also a laboratory where Cutting Edge technology is tested off the coast of tulon seven men from the human dive and undersea intervention unit the sephus May are preparing to carry out the 1,000th dive in the N suit a man device designed to assist submarines in distress at a depth of 65 M this Michelin Man Of The Seas begins a very delicate exercise on a wreck with the help of its articulated arms and little grabs the pilot has to detach the cylinders then plug a metal attachment into the orifices to refresh the air in the submarine and thereby save the [Music] crew the atmospheric n suit diving suit is a system which enables diving to a depth of 300 M without undergoing the effects of pressure that means you can carry out Dives of several hours as much as 6 hours with a single diver carrying out detailed work on the seabed which requires long Dives and you can bring the diver back up without decompression stops such extreme conditions require regular training in this pool installed in the middle of the naval base in France tulong is the only military Port equipped with this diving suit which only four nations use worldwide nearby we find a capsule that resembles a space station this hyperbaric chamber is used for simulations such as here in 2015 during an unusual experiment divers remained confined for 7 Days in 40 cubic M of space they were subjected to pressure equivalent to a depth of 100 M the objective of this immersion was to advance science we carried out a simulation for four people staying in Hyperbaric atmosphere as if they were imprisoned in a crippled submarine on the seabed the crew had to be brought to the surface using decompression stops if you can use that expression in a slow gradual and controlled way to avoid any risk of the bends for the whole crew thanks to these technological innovations deep sea operations are a field of Excellence for the French navy recognized worldwide but today technology also extends into the digital domain in this Simulator the sailors train in self-defense with dummy weapons on a giant 270° screen very high resolution projectors make all sorts of threats Loom up in an ultra realistic display behind this screen data is recorded which can analyze the sailor’s reactions in the face of a predetermined scenario in this case they’re supposed to be on board a frigate during a stopover the captain has to identify the threat level of all the vessel around the ship we currently have a boat with a white and blue Hull which has stopped a Stern we’ve classified it as neutral the inflatable vessel we remain Vigilant regarding any persons who might be on the Breakwater here we have to determine if among all this there might be a little Dow with people who want to carry out a suicide attack on the FR so we train in the simulator to deal with this type of threat we see two alerts on the starboard side 30 classified suspect The Vessel which has penetrated the forbidden zone is first sent a warning [Music] sound the suspected threat continues its course so a warning shot is fired into the water warning shot on port side Personnel Alert warning shots fired what do you do against a dow arriving at 15 20 knots with the aim of blowing itself up the last resort eliminating the Target no response no change of attitude on their part limited fire on starboard path alert firing the sailors are training to deal with this specific threat because this scenario has already occurred in 2000 the American frigate USS Cole was the target of a suicide attack when it was in Port in Yemen in the Middle East a vessel packed with explosives pierced its Hull killing 17 [Music] Sailors but in tulong the priority remains preparing the warships for operations this involves refueling restocking the Munitions and loading supplies to ensure the autonomy of the crew wherever they are around the globe this vast Warehouse is like a supermarket full of the long conservation products used by Sailors alongside is a giant frozen food store its contents are dispatched to the ships and are essential to operations at Sea that can last for months but the main task is maintaining the ship so they are permanently at full operational capacity a ship is like a car you use it and then at some point you have to go in for a 30,000 km service it’s the same for ships except because a ship is bigger than a car the operation is a bigger Affair we need docks we need cranes it’s on an industrial scale we’re moving heavy loads and since modern ships are packed with technology and Computing we need some very Precision mechanics and with 70% of the tonnage of the Fleet in Port tulong has its work cut out for it but how do they repair these huge ships battered by the Sea how do they work beneath their Halls the solution involves an ingenious technique these basins known as dry docks they are built around 15 M below sea level we start with the Basin full of water once it is full the gate is floated away from the entrance the ship moves into the Basin the gate is put back in place and waited to seal the entrance of the Basin then we use electric pumps to empty the dock through evacuation tunnels as the water level goes down the ship comes to rest on this row of big concrete blocks topped with wooden chalk to avoid damaging the hle once the ship is high and dry it’s accessible to the workers below sea level they get busy on the hulls the decks and in the bowels of these [Applause] ships today in this Dry Dock 180 M long with a volume of 60,000 cubic M the anti-aircraft frigate chaler Paul is having a makeover it will remain here for 7 months we’ll check everything that makes a ship and then everything that makes it a warship The Radars the sonars modernization of the Operation Center verification of the acoustic muffling modernization of the cabling we’re going to install fiber that’s why it takes several months but the heavy mechanics and the high tech and precision electronics are done at the same time when work on the is completed the operation is reversed we start by opening the valves to flood the Basin once the water level is the same as in the harbor then the ship can leave the dark and we can start over with the next [Music] one in all the tulon Naval Base has 12 dry docks adapted to all sizes of vessel including the biggest of them all the shalal in 2017 the aircraft carrier spent 18 months in dry dock for a total refit which took 4 million man hours of work this clever technique of dry dos is nothing new it dates back some 200 years even then tulong was already the biggest military port in France but its history goes back even earlier to the reign of the Sun King this is the mid 17th century Louis the 14th had a crazy project he wanted a squadron of 50 to 60 ships in the Mediterranean tulong was designated to become the biggest Port of war in the region except that the little Port was absolutely not ready to play that role it’s huge in the port of tulon there were barely a dozen ships so they had to create an Arsenal which could not only build two or three ships at the same time but which could also moreour them so they would be ready to serve the maritime and political Ambitions of Louis the 14th starting in 1669 and for the next 10 years a dozen projects were proposed but none of them was good enough that is until the king’s right-hand man Kar called on a new engineer in charge of the Kingdom’s fortifications Von he used his skills in picking out the best he studied the plans produced by his predecessors and produced a composite and proposed a plan which K immediately [Music] liked when he presented it to Kar he was extremely prudent he said I’m afraid sir that the cost will horrify you and that you will consider me Bolder than is reasonable but he concluded by saying that it would be money well spent signed a check for V and work on the Arsenal began it began in 1679 and lasted for 15 years the total area was 30 hectars eight times bigger than the previous port at the heart of his design Von put the ship building [Music] facility it was right at the center of the Arsenal because obviously had to be at the water’s edge so that the ships could be launched once they had been built in the dry docks it was also in the center because all the materials involved in Naval construction had to converge there starting with the manufacturer of ropes they are still used today in tulon Naval Base to Mo the warships at the k-side at the time they were a key element in the construction of sail powerered warships a vessel with 100 cannons needed around 200 kilm of ropes and the material what was used was hemp at this time in the French navy the material what they used the most was wood and hemp and hemp was very cheap vobon built a huge rope Factory 402 M long and 20 M wide it had three workshops to produce rope this rope Factory was absolutely phenomenal in terms of its volume and scale it was the biggest rope Factory ever built in the Kingdom nowadays the building is still just as impressive it now houses The Archives of the Navy in the Mediterranean to the west of the new Arsenal is the artillery store the vast quantities of cannons and cannon balls which armed the ships were stored here thousands of cannons needed to be stalked in the Arsenal because one of Louis the 14’s fleets would be composed of several dozen ships and the most powerful carried between 90 and 110 cannons the Arsenal also had to provide Provisions for the sailors who would leave on campaigns for months at a stretch back then the Navy handled the task itself so far removed from the ship building site to avoid fire Von had another essential structure built a bakery with 12 ovens at the time of the sail powered Navy the sailor’s basic food stuff was the Sea Biscuit the Sea Biscuit is a sort of bread which is cooked for a long time at a very low temperature so all the moisture is gone this staple made of FL and water can then be kept it’s just a method of long-term conservation huge quantities were involved a ship with 74 cannons which was the standard vessel in the 18th century would have carried 130 tons of sea biscuits for a six-month camp this new Arsenal also had to be defended Von thought the existing fortifications were not enough he immediately saw that the weak point in tulon was the Eastern side at the entrance to the Big Harbor where any enemy could land on its beaches and take tulon from behind so he built the fort of Le viette this new Coastal structure featured a tower 50 m in diameter on two levels long as a military port on the Mediterranean tulong was obviously a strategic Target for France’s adversary especially the British throughout the 18th century they constantly tried to find a way to sack the port of tulong so it was vital to defend it especially from the sea because any Naval power was likely to POS a threat to T three centuries later that threat still exists but it has changed form today the fear is a terrorist act the protection of the Naval Base remains a crucial issue our cameras got exceptional permission to enter the sanctuary of the military Port cell phones are forbidden to get in requires a badge a code and passing through a double security door please come in this is the Navy operational Center the Comm in this large room room all information on activities underway in the Mediterranean is centralized in real time the aim is to identify any Potential Threat among the heavy shipping traffic in the region the Mediterranean covers perhaps 1% of the surface of the oceans but it has 25% of global Shipping traffic 2third of France’s supplies pass through here so you can imagine trading activity and the navigation involved in that this facility operates under strict secrecy because the exact positions of the entire french navy Fleet are sent here each vessel transmits to the Comm all the intelligence gathered a place like this ensures that all information can be relayed to detect any abnormal activity the appearance of a threat and thereby prepare a plan to counter that threat that’s why we have a detailed system in tulong that I won’t be sh you today you understand why which allows us to intervene in a very short space of time to stop a terrorist attack on a cargo vessel at sea or a terrorist attack that might Target our military installations but how do they detect a threat from the sea that targets tulong the Navy depends on a surveillance chain that has three levels the first level is at the other end of the Mediterranean off the coast of Syria there nuclear-powered attack submarines keep watch following the evolution of Crisis the second level is at the Western end of the Mediterranean here Patrol boats are permanently posted on the high seas ready for a rapid response but there is an even faster line of defense once a day a Falcon 50 patrols over the Mediterranean to check the region equipped with raid radar and cameras the crew monitors the navigation we will detect boats that are about 24 hours away from arriving on the French coast and those 24 hours will allow the authorities to implement the necessary actions in case of problems or a threat the final layer of surveillance closest to the military Port are the lookout Towers there are 19 of them in the Mediterranean in this Tower with its breathtaking Panorama spotters scour the sea 24/7 armed with huge binoculars which magnify more than 25 times they are the eyes of the Mediterranean this defensive Shield may seem state-of-the-art but it’s not new in the 19th century a highly sophisticated system of rings of protection was established this is Mahon a mountain 584 M High located just 2500 M from the port it posed no threat to talong until the second half of the 19th century because the range of artillery was no more than 1,000 M there was a turning point in the 1840s when progress in Metallurgy meant the effective range of artillery Rose to 2400 m so they decided to build a complete system of fortifications on the mountain the aim was to stop a unit of agile and determined infantry reaching the summit and seizing the spot among the constructions is the ubac Tower built in 1845 that same year the imposing for Faron was built meanwhile the mandrier Peninsula at the entrance to the Big Harbor was also being covered with Forts and Coastal batteries but this defensive ring would not be enough after the defeat in 1870 France planned to take its revenge on its long-standing enemy across the Ryme the problem was that the defenses which had only just been finished around the harbor were already obsolete in the space of 30 years range had gone from 2400 M to 6,000 M then almost to 10 km given the short distance between Faron and the Arsenal a cannon placed on Mount Faron could drop shells into the Arsenal which would have been disastrous for the fleet the only solution was to build another much wider ring of forts around tulong with a perimeter of 35 km between the the heights of seur and kir spaced every 6,000 M these defensive positions could defend one another all the surrounding Hills were topped with forts Each of which became a target for attack and from where the enemy could fire so they had to occupy them in anticipation because there are two principles in terms of Defense first occupy the position where the adversary would go to bombard you and secondly he who controls The High Ground controls the low ground [Music] among these new structures was an impassible wall the fur de laafar completed in 1875 located at 525 m above sea level it still offers one of the best views down onto the Naval Base it was built right into the mountain side the line of the wall to the north and east followed the Contours of the rock since it’s only defensive purpose was to stop it being scaled by Commandos but its unique feature was its artillery contrary to usual practice it was not placed on the top of the Fortress but beneath it the most spectacular part of the fort is here 15 M below ground here Caverns have been carved into the Rock there are 12 in total these galleries were designed to house the Cannons through the openings the Gunners would fire into the valley the Cannons were thus totally protected from enemy fire the position in the openings cannot be easily seen from a distance and the mass of rock whether on the facade or above is so great that caves with their cannons were safe from enemy shells at the start of the 20th century tulong was behind a ring of Steel including 120 large caliber cannons and 15 mortars but they would play no role in the first world war since the coast of tulon never came under threat however in the second world war the port saw its Fleet almost entirely destroyed but this was not due to an enemy attack the French themselves scuttled the pride of the Navy at Rond on June 22nd 1940 France signed an Armistice with the Third Reich it kept control of its Navy so the Germans could not use the French Fleet Germany made this concession to France on condition that all the vessels in the Navy would assemble in the port of tulon and would stay there and be disarmed but two years later during the Allied Landings in North Africa on November 8th 1942 Hitler was Furious the rumor had circulated for several months that the Allies were preparing a double Landing in North Africa and France so on November 11th 1942 the German panzers were sent post haste to the Mediterranean Coast Germany had decided to enter the free zone and obviously headed for tul long to seize the French Fleet seeing that the Navy was thrown into some confusion as to what to do should they flee but fleeing would mean going to England should they Scupper the ships how could they Scupper such a powerful [Music] navy on November 27th 1942 the Navy took a radical decision the order was given to sink the entire fleet to stop the ships falling into enemy hands it was around 5:00 that the SC uh scatterling started that they have open the uh loopholes and that they lit on the explosives and then it took up to halfast 6 that people in tulong could hear all these explosions some ships were sunk vertically in the hope of recovering them later others were simply destroyed five submarine commanders disobeyed the order and left Harbor three of them reached North Africa and resumed combat along the Allies 90% of the fleet was destroyed it was chaos the port was in Flames some buildings were burning until mid December so you can imagine the clouds of smoke the pollution the explosions that could be heard it was an unbelievable site and the population was distraught the French navy lost most of its capacity and no longer existed in Mainland France after The Liberation everything had to be rebuilt This Disaster is one of the darkest pages in the history of the French navy and it saw tulon lose its place as leader it would take close to 30 years before the port resumed its position as number one in France today the naval base is the biggest military port in Europe and as such is a highly sensitive site it has to continually adapt to new threats and above all stay one step ahead what if tomorrow the security of the Naval Base depended on drones in 2017 a unique experiment in Europe was carried out by a group specializing in Naval defense in barely 30 minutes an inflatable dinghy threatening the Naval Base had been detected identified and neutralized solely through the intervention of three drones this is how it went out at Sea a vessel is navigating very slowly toward tulong but it has turned off its AIS or automatic identification system the AIS is a system fitted to Merchant shipping as well as military craft and which provides information on the nature of the vessel it’s like its identity card if a boat switches off its AIS that means it may be trying to hide its identity and that it has potentially suspect Behavior rather than send any men to check the vessel which would mean taking risks they send the first drone the d19 this is an underwater drone a bit Like a Torpedo it measures 6 m in length discreetly it deploys its telescopic Mast the telescopic Mast is fitted with a camera which allows 360° vision it will take some initial videos and images which are sent back in real time based on this information we have a first level of analysis but this initial level will not remove all doubt as to whether this is a threat are they armed how many are on board so they decide to continue the investigation a second device is sent the it10 a flying drone weighing around 30 kilos it’s equipped with two counter rotating rotors which allow it to deal with windy conditions the aerial drone will take pictures from above and theyby provide another view of the situation such as any cargo that may be on the vessel once we have these two sources of information which we will combine we’ll be able to tell if there are a number of attackers whether they are acting suspiciously and whether we have to go into the zone to neutralize them neutral even neutralization does not require human intervention instead they send this inflatable a very fast surface drone it’s 7 m long and weighs 3 tons and there’s no pilot on board how can this vessel Force the attackers to surrender it’s equipped with a non-lethal weapon but one which is nonetheless effective in combat situations a Sonic Cannon it can generate a sound almost as loud as a jet taking off far beyond the pain threshold it’s really deafening it doesn’t kill but the effect is quite radical and so if there are any humans on board they’ll find it very hard to endure the volume of sound emitted and will probably surrender this method invented by the US defense industry in the early 2000s has already been used like here in 2009 during the Pittsburgh riots in the United States this multi-d drone system is not yet used by the French navy but in the future the security of the tulon Naval Base will no doubt involve [Applause] drones you can deploy them 24/7 without exposing high value un UNS without exposing human beings and at a reasonable cost one can very well imagine in the near future that for an alert in the Naval Base a drone would be in the area within a few seconds so the future not only of the Naval Base but also the Navy in general and other Armed Forces will see an increase in drones that will facilitate their jobs another future development in 2028 the naval base of tulong will welcome six Next Generation nuclear powered attack submarines the Barracuda class coveted by many the military Port has survived through the centuries despite Wars and attacks thanks to its elaborate defense systems it has managed to stand firm by Reinventing itself nowadays more active than ever the naval base of tulong honors its past by adapting to France’s military Ambitions of tomorrow [Music]