File Photo: A container ship operated by the French CMA CGM shipping company runs into the port of Marseille. AFP
The vessel, the CMA CGM Kribi, is owned by French shipping giant CMA CGM and flagged in Malta.
It crossed the strategically vital waterway on Thursday, 2 April, broadcasting its French ownership on its automatic identification system while navigating close to Iran’s coastline between Qeshm and Larak islands—an area often described by maritime security analysts as part of Tehran’s informal monitoring corridor.
Tehran has blocked all ships linked to the US-Israeli war on Iran, deeming them 'hostile countries', from passing through the Strait of Hormuz since 28 February.
Iran has allowed ships linked to countries that refused to support the US-Israeli war to pass through Hormuz, including China, Russia, India, Thailand, Pakistan, and Turkey.
The Iranian permission allowing CMA CGM to transit Hormuz could signal that Tehran no longer considers France a 'hostile country".
President Emmanuel Macron, who refused to join the American-Israeli aggression against Iran and has called for de-escalation, also rejected President Trump's repeated calls on NATO allies to help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force.
Last week, speaking during a visit to Seoul, Macron said unilateral military effort to force the strait open is “unrealistic,” adding that restoring safe passage “can only be done in coordination with Iran.”
According to United Nations trade data, daily ship crossings through the strait, which carries 20 percent of global oil and natural gas, have collapsed from roughly 130 before the war to just six in March, sending oil and gas prices skyrocketing and increasing inflationary pressures on a world scale.
A second vessel, the Sohar LNG, a Japanese co-owned liquefied natural gas tanker, also completed a crossing on 3 April.
Unlike the French vessel, however, it reportedly transited empty and adopted a more cautious route, hugging Oman’s Musandam Peninsula rather than passing through the northern “toll booth” lanes closer to Iranian territorial waters.
The tanker is co-owned with Oman Shipping Management, and data from MarineTraffic and LSEG indicate that two very large crude carriers and the Sohar LNG exited the Persian Gulf on the same day.
Neither CMA CGM nor the French government responded to requests for comment.
On Thursday, France joined more than 40 countries in UK-led virtual talks focused on restoring maritime access.
Speaking after the meeting, French Armed Forces spokesperson Guillaume Vernet described the process as multi-phased, emphasizing that any effort to safely reopen Hormuz would require a de-escalation of hostilities and eventual coordination with Iran to ensure security guarantees for commercial shipping.
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