France Drags Bab el-Mandeb to the Security Council as Transits Collapse
Paris forced the strait onto the Security Council’s Tuesday agenda as the numbers turned dire: four commodity vessels through Hormuz against a pre-war norm in the dozens, Bab el-Mandeb transits down to twenty-one, and the Iran-Gulf meeting on a managed corridor postponed indefinitely at Riyadh’s request. Turkey’s foreign minister demanded the attacks “stop immediately”; Yemen’s envoy promised his government would fight for the waterway.
France convening the Council is Europe discovering its exposure: the Red Sea route is Europe’s artery more than America’s — Suez feeds Marseille, Rotterdam and every Mediterranean refinery — and with Washington preoccupied managing its own war, the diplomatic vacuum on the second strait is being filled by whoever moves first. The Council’s impotence is priced in advance — any resolution meets a Russian pen — but the session’s real function is evidentiary: building the record that legitimises whatever coalition action follows, as the Red Sea missions of 2024 were built on similar paper. Four transits through Hormuz is the number that should end any complacency — that is closure with a rounding error. Watch whether France’s initiative matures into a European naval reinforcement — ASPIDES is the vehicle waiting.