“On Monday, September 22, 2025, under the direction of the Maritime Prefect of the Atlantic and the Public Prosecutor at the Brest Judicial Court, two French Navy vessels seized 9.6 tons of cocaine off the coast of West Africa. The National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED) requested the intervention of the French Navy in order to exploit operational intelligence that it had collected in conjunction with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (Narcotics) (MAOC-N), the Anti-Narcotics Office (OFAST) and the British National Crime Agency (NCA). The inspection teams of the vessels deployed as part of Operation Corymbe intervened on September 22, 2025, on the high seas in the Atlantic maritime zone on an unflagged fishing vessel.”

“Conducted off the African coast, the operation was initiated on the basis of Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Montego Bay), and concluded with the discovery of narcotics. A total of 9.6 tonnes of cocaine, with an estimated street value of nearly 519 million euros, were seized on board the ship,” said the French Atlantic Naval command in a statement.

That’s freaking crazy right? French naval personnel actually interdicted and boarded the boat to arrest the drug traffickers, seize their product, and verify they were in fact carrying narcotics instead of blasting them from a combat aircraft at an altitude of like 1,500 ft like they’re playing a fucking arcade game – and then having their president, with a straight face, telling a reporter that in video taken from that aircraft you can see drugs floating in the wreckage after the vessel was destroyed.