French and American media reported Friday that a container ship belonging to the French shipping group CMA CGM crossed the Strait of Hormuz.
It marked the first confirmed crossing by a vessel identifiable with Western Europe since the war effectively halted the vital maritime artery. The strait has been closed in practice since the wave of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28, with only a handful of ships managing to cross since then.
According to vessel-tracking data, the CMA CGM Kribi sailed from waters off Dubai toward Iran on Thursday afternoon. It hugged the Iranian coastline and passed through the channel between Qeshm and Larak islands, openly broadcasting its route and its French ownership throughout.
By Friday morning, the ship had signaled that it was off the coast of Muscat, Oman. The vessel flies a Maltese flag and can carry approximately 5,000 containers. The shipping company, owned by the billionaire Saadé family (a Franco-Lebanese dynasty that controls CMA CGM), had previously reported that 14 of its ships remained stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to leave.
It remains unclear how the ship secured safe passage, but an Iranian authorization system appears to be taking shape on the ground. While traffic through the strait has nearly come to a halt over the past month, the few vessels that have crossed are those associated with countries friendly to Tehran or those that received advance approval, strictly adhering to a route hugging the Iranian coast.
Pakistan, for instance, reached an agreement allowing 20 ships to fly its flag, and several other Asian nations secured safe passage for themselves. On the diplomatic front, French President Emmanuel Macron announced during a visit to South Korea that France would work to stabilize the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, but stressed that it would only be possible "after the bombing stops."
Alongside the exceptional French crossing, a very slight uptick in vessel traffic exiting the Gulf through Omani waters was recorded, but the figures remain significantly below pre-war levels.
