France to deploy 11 warships, mulls Hormuz mission, Macron says

That could ultimately include the Strait of Hormuz to support commercial vessels, Macron said.

"We are in the process of setting up a purely defensive, purely escort mission, which must be prepared together with both European and non-European states, and whose purpose is to enable, as soon as possible after the most intense phase of the conflict has ended, the escort of container ships and tankers to gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz," Macron said, without elaborating.

(Additional reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro, Renee Maltezou and Eleftherios Papadimas; editing by Philippa Fletcher)