(AP) — France will deploy eight warships, including the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and two helicopter carriers, to the Eastern Mediterranean and wider Middle East to bolster security around the European Union’s eastern frontier, President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.

Speaking in Cyprus days after a drone struck the British base on the island — the first attack of the war on European soil — Macron also said France is working on an initiative to escort oil and gas tankers through the Strait of Hormuz once the conflict’s most intense phase eases.