The French government’s defence procurement agency has placed an order for a fifth Defence and Intervention Frigate from Naval Group, the company stated.
The order was notified on 31 March 2026, following the ordering of the fourth FDI in December 2025. The fifth frigate completes a programme of five units for the French Navy, with both vessels being built at Naval Group’s facility in Lorient.
Pierre Éric Pommellet, Chairman and CEO of Naval Group, said the orders for frigates four and five “renews its confidence in us to complete the series of defence and intervention frigates,” adding that the company is “fully mobilized to provide the French Navy with the means to achieve naval superiority, in the service of France’s sovereignty.”
Alongside the four FDI frigates already ordered by the Hellenic Navy, the two latest French orders bring the total production run of the class to nine vessels.
The FDI is described by Naval Group as a first-rank frigate capable across anti-aircraft, anti-submarine, anti-surface and asymmetric warfare. According to the company, the design combines advanced digital and data processing technologies with the ability to operate independently or as part of a fleet against threats including latest-generation submarines, supersonic missiles, cyberattacks and asymmetric threats. The ship is built to NATO standards, ensuring interoperability with allied navies.
The lead vessel of the class, Admiral Ronarc’h, has completed 14 weeks of sea trials to date, during which the crew observed its performance in sea state six conditions in the Atlantic Ocean. Naval Group said the compact layout of the FDI makes it suited to a range of environments including cold and warm waters and archipelagic settings.
The design also incorporates integrated automation systems that allow the ship to operate with a reduced crew, and Naval Group said its maintainability is comparable to that of the French Navy’s FREMM multi-mission frigates, which have achieved an 80 percent availability rate over more than a decade.
Word from Sweden is that it will get its first FDI frigate in 2030 due to France continuing to give up its own slots. I know we did something similar with Norway to get the T26 however in that instance Norway will be supplementing UK defence directly with those vessels.
It’s always going to be very difficult for the UK to compete against nations (France and Spain) who sees its military as a job creation program first and foremost and is willing to accept military cuts and deficiencies to maintain job programs.
There is simply no way that the MoD or the government will be willing to cut or delay significant military programs to keep a continuous order of frigates at Rosyth rolling out of production. We should get past this fantasy of building frigates for export and size our production around our own needs.
We have little if any chance of more export orders for Arrowhead 140 built in the UK and we have three surface yards cranking out ships with a fleet that can barely support one.
France just has more experience in what it takes to win a weapon deal. Getting export deals is crucial to financing the shipbuilding industry as the French navy will never order enough hulls to keep the shipyards open… Spreading the delivery of hulls over a longer period is also much easier to manage financially that acquiring them over a short period of time.
The fantasy is thinking you can sustain British shipbuilding industry only with British orders, that’s a recipe for huge cost overruns and delays.
And Italy also has been pretty good in getting exports and then ordering replacements for their Navy. And with Greece just ordering 4 FDIs there must be some economies of scale gained from this additional ship for France.
Any news on AH140s for Denmark yet? Update on NZ? Additional for Poland? Looks like Indonesia could go for some Mogami too even though manufacturing their own AH140 variant.
NZ won’t decide till next year about what they are ordering, the RNZN will make a recommendation then, apparently. Still think they are likely to go with commonalty with Australia though. Denmark has gone completely quiet
I’ll be amazed in NZ selects AH140.
I’ve gained $17,240 only within four weeks by comfortably working part-time from home. Immediately when I had lost my last business, I was very troubled and thankfully I’ve located this project now in this way I’m in a position to receive thousand USD directly from home. Each individual certainly can do this easy work & make more greenbacks online by visiting
following website—.,.,.,.,.—>>> JobatHome1.Com
Maybe less likely to, but the range and mission bays of the Type 31 do give it some good advantages over the Mogami assuming they actually get the properly equipped ship with the Mk.41 and sonar
The Japanese seem to have the West Pacific Sown Up…!
I Do Wonder if the Negative Comments of the T31 on Media sites in this Country has had an Impact..!
Hurts to say it but the french appear to have a better Idea of how to build and operate their navy. It’s procurement is far, fair better than the UK., THERE’S NONE OF THIS HYBRID NAVY NONSENSE. just a vision of common sense approach to the running of their armed forces.. and they are the biggest naval power in Europe.
It’s the British ship building industry that’s the issue , we neither need nor can sustain and industry in such fields.
It’s nothing more than a subsidy black hole, fine for our own warships but exports are a waste of time. They offer no economic gain to the country at great expense.
Sorry Jim but that doesn’t make any sense at all.
Saying exports offer no economic gain is ridiculous.
Exports are All Well and Good BUT When you have A Navy Down to its Knees Begging for Vessels..Giving Building Slots Away is Crazy..!
Speaks Volumes of the Priorities we Place in this Country..!
Thel likes of France and Italy With their Modern Navies Can Get Away With it…! We Can’t…!
For each £ spent you get 3-4£ back in the economy, through high paying jobs, taxes and stuff.
Losing a little money by subsidising a yard and making some exports is a lot cheaper than spending a decade not making anything then having to relearn skills and retrain thousands.
It is job creation, but that said one man’s job creation is another man’s support for your own industry. You are much more likely to get the export sale if you have ordered them for your own forces. When you are entering a competitive market there’s a saying that you either need to be the first or the best. In this case Naval Group are the first and the best! By being the first you define the market. Best thing Babcock and the UK can do now is decide what T32 should do and order 5…define the future….multipurpose mothership GP or whatever. Position the FDI as legacy thinking.
Yes, just show me the other programs getting cut to pay for the 5 T32’s though.
MRSS? Build one or two more 2 spot Enforcers?
There needs to be a fundamental change in the kind of ships we build, or alternatively, how long we operate each ship.
If we establish an iterative build process for our LUSVs, in which each design might serve for just a decade or so, before being replaced, you could start to build a drumbeat.
T83 will go to BAE post T26. That’ll cover them until the 2050. Belfast has FSS work up until about 2040, at which point work on the Tide-replacement begins. Babcock therefore should take MRSS or additional frigates. Appledore is also doing FSS work.
There is also additional OPV replacements needed. So the work exists, it’ll just have to be tightly managed. France does better because the government can essentially tell the yards what to build, and when.
Sounds good but second hand warships attract about 10% of their construction cost and most warships we build take about ten years to de snag.
So we end up with lots of snagging work on new warships and it costs us roughly double to build them because we have to retire them after only half their life.
In return we get a few thousand welders working in a shipyard making frigates for a subsidy instead of working in another yard doing wind turbines for a profit.
Makes sense 🤔
You do get that ship building is a hell of a lot more than just “a few thousand welders” right?
You understand that any industry those welders were doing would generate supply chain spinoffs right?
not needed, since Naval Group is delievering two FDI yearly.
Greece is getting Nearchos and Formion delivered in 2026.
MN Louzeau has been launched about a week ago, the radar section has already been mounted
HN Themistocles and MN Castex are in dry dock for hull construction.
Sweden is getting its first frigate in 2030, then 1 delivered every year
As you can see there are open slots if Denmark wants a frigate by 2030
Minister Lecornu announced in 2025, that an additional 3 FDI are planned post 2030 making a total of 8 FDI for MN, maybe some of those slots will be given to export if new customers place orders.
My wife’s sister lives in Sunderland and I went for a bimble around what was the pallion shipyard. It’ still has one of the biggest covered shipbuilding shall in Europe it would cost millions trips to rebuild the site. But it would give the country another. Alternative to the Clyde. And provide employment to a somewhat deprived area in the country it’s been earmarked for a film recording place, which never happened and the site is barely recognized as a former yard the skills required to op the place still exists.
The cadence of production can be increased by a third. One frigate per year would be better. Two forms are being used while 3 are available. It can and should be done before the PAANG construction starts to take a big shunk of qualified workers.
As far as capabilities, that’s true that selling weapons is not building France’s assets, but since we have to contain Russia, selling weapons to Greece and Sweeden serves this very purpose.
In the end, their are so many equipments to buy and limited that delay it is not a problem per se.
France is now the leading naval power in Europe, and that includes the U.K. A balanced fleet with availablity levels we haven’t seen in years. Meanwhile the UK government talks about jobs in industry without having the guts to publish the D.I.P. They have cut and delayed orders and won’t or cannot publish the Defence Action Plan either. Due this summer it has now been postponed until 2027. Will either plan be published?
They have long periods with very low availability too. Like the part time carrier force.
Err, not really. Their nuclear infrastructure is really prompt, and the carrier actually is quite active.
Even the every-seven-years periodic refuelling is fast.
Yet the Royal navy is 60% larger than the French navy, please explain?
British Naval Service (Royal Navy & RFA)
Total Tonnage: ~645,600 tonnes
French Naval Service (Marine Nationale)
Total Tonnage: ~420,000 to 440,000 tonnes
The British ships are peer queens… In reality the French can put way more hulls in the water than the British.
How much of that RFA fleet is actually active? How many hulls sat alongside for weeks/months simply to get to the next budget cycle as the RFA was out of money? Lets not even talk about the SSN availability, or the dying of the 23’s. Yes of course having 2 65K+ carriers pads the numbers but that comes at a cost.
@Mark and Ely, The RFA consists of 8 vessels, 7 of them are actively crewed now with the 8th being stepped up in the next 6 months. Perhaps you could share the French figures to prove your point. I don’t have them but presume you do to make such assumptions.
FREMM and FDI have something like 80% availability rate and double crews, meanwhile HMS Daring spent eight years peer side. French frigates aren’t as heavily armed, advanced, or numerous as the British counterparts but they are way more maintainable, and deployable.
Its about the same with the submarines.
British procurement makes expensive kit they can’t maintain.
80% availability rate doesn’t make sense when the French said they only manage 180 days in the water each year for each frigate not in refit when using double crews which they don’t for all.
It seems the French to reach 80% availability are just including everything not in refit instead of the % actually available to sail at any one point
Availabilty doesn’t necessarily mean they are deployed I guess.
Thats just top trumps again sorry. Our RFA is essentially defunct. Submarine force is bare arse ie One SSN and one SSBN going. Our carriers are fighting it out with each other and the RAF to get jets on board. The RN has never been in a worse position in hundreds of years.
interesting take
Royal Navy has approx 32,000 personnel (including 6,000 Royal Marines)
Marine Nationale has approx 40,000 personnel
Yeah, but no but. We’re getting 1,000 Roboboats apparently… Less manpower means less expensive loaves of bread (🥖).
Halfwit, I can’t reply to you, I keep getting “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. Sunray is on to us! 👀
Hypothetical questiion Jim… If an obese man is 150 kilo’s and a fit man is 90 whi is likely to be the most fit? In my book it’s the French. Tonnage doesn’t matter. They have CdeG, three amphibious carriers, sixteen modern escorts and sixten offshore patrol vessels. More to the point their ships are all fully equipped. They are not waiting ten years for an ASW platform They are there. They are not waiting six years fo their ships to have anti ship. They have them. We have eleven escorts, all waiting to have work done and five of them are on their last sea legs.
Thanks Geoff Roach
We also have our share of issues. La Fayette frigates counted as first rank with no Aster, one carrier only and far less VLS…
The QEC can apparently bake around 1,000 loaves of bread a day. Meanwhile, Charles de Gaulle reportedly bakes around 1,500 baguettes daily, with a surge capability of roughly 2,000.
Blimey, that must cost them a fair bit of dough…
I expect they had a Rise.
🥖 ouch…😅
Neither would be any use In a Bun Fight……. We need more Buns.
Sticky buns.. they work best.
Everything based in Scotland has been a disaster. We need ship yards opened up in England. France also invests in engineering at age 12, while the UK is still doing dinosaurs painting, clay making, RE, drama. Our curriculum is so out of date. Apprenticeships and T levels is simply too late and age to be teaching such skills.
Is Cumbria in England 😀
France invests in engineering at age 12 😀
I think we use to do that but we stopped around the time Charles dickens started writing books 😂
The French have impressive naval forces and outrank the UK navy in terms of hulls. In fact, France militarily outranks the wee UK forces across the board and also have an independent nuclear deterrent. Impressive indeed.
North Korea has more hulls than the USA, does that make North Korea the worlds preeminent naval power?
Just to add to the debate, the Ford class can apparently turn out around 17,000 hamburgers a day. Meanwhile, North Korea’s flagship reportedly produces 12 instant noodle pots daily.
Way to go Jim…. Don’t let them pesky Frenchies get one over on you mate !!!! 😁😁😁
Appparently, you can fit three CAMM missles in a single A-50 cell. So, theoretically, these ships could be equipped with 16 Asters and 48 CAMMs. Not bad for a 4,500 ton ship.
No reason you couldn’t fit 4.
The diameter of the missiles easily fits, and length shouldn’t be an issue given that you can quad pack the escort length mk.41 with CAMM and it’s pretty much the same length as the A50
France and Italy continue to blow the UK away on warship export sales, ultimately the Norwegian T26s being the only order for major warships since the 1970’s that will actually be built in UK shipyards. Spain and Germany have struggled a bit this decade, but Navantia has cleverly seized the opportunity to cheaply build a major UK presence, whilst retaining the high value work in Spain. The value of a regular steam of export order is all too obvious when comparing the RN with the far larger and stronger Marine National, and realistically the Marina Militare is also now larger and stronger. If the RN still had perhaps three operational SSNs and maintained at least one decent carrier air group I would prevaricate on the MN comparison, but it doesn’t have either – and that’s before we even consider amphibious shipping, or even mine warfare and afloat logistic support.
Hurts to say it but the french appear to have a better Idea of how to build and operate their navy. It’s procurement is far, fair better than the UK., THERE’S NONE OF THIS HYBRID NAVY NONSENSE. just a vision of common sense approach to the running of their armed forces.. and they are the biggest naval power in Europe.