PARIS (Sputnik) — French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will leave its Toulon homeport on November 18, heading to the Middle East to conduct airstrikes against Islamic State, French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said on Friday.
"The combat unit will leave Toulon in a few days, on November 18, reaching the Persian Gulf by mid-December," Le Foll told France's BFMTV television channel.
Earlier this month, the French presidential office announced that Paris would send a naval task force led by the Charles de Gaulle, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in support of military operations against Islamic State militants.
The French aircraft carrier was previously deployed in February to the Persian Gulf to back military operations against the extremists, Eduardo Rihan Cypel, a member of the French National Defense and Armed Forces Committee told Sputnik.
France is part of a US-led international coalition bombing Islamic State positions in Iraq an Syria.