Vive de Gaulle!
Here we see a splendid image of the 42,000-ton 858-foot long French nuclear-powered carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91). She is the flagship of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) and the largest Western European warship. Although France has had nine other carriers since the old Béarn back in the 1920s, this ship is by far the largest warship ever placed into service to the Republic (having both a longer length and higher standard displacement than the two Richelieu-class battleships of WWII, although those ships had a marginally greater full load displacement)
She took more than 15 years to build, but the French love her, having sent her in harms way to have her air-arm deployed over Afghanistan no less than four different times supporting NATO operations. Then in 2011 she flew more than 1,350 sorties from her deck over Libya.
