France will bring home its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier from its Libyan mission next week for maintenance, Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told the regional daily Var-Matin, according to Reuters. France will move its Rafale fighter jets from the carrier, moored off the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, to NATO's base in Sicily for the time being. Longuet did not say if the Charles de Gaulle would be sent back after maintenance. "We are in a situation of redeployment of our resources in order to support the NATO mission until the end," Longuet told Var-Matin in an interview published on Thursday. The carrier, deployed since March in the NATO-led Libya operation and at sea for many months before that, will stay in operation until at least Aug. 10 and dock at the Mediterranean port of Toulon before Aug. 15 for technical checks and to rest its personnel. -- SPA
