Captain Yannick Bossu

Deputy Commander French Strike Force (FRSTRIKEFOR)

Captain Yannick Bossu joined the French Naval Academy in Brest in 1993. After his three-year initial training course, he served for several years at sea on board a great variety of ships including a patrol boat, an anti-submarine warfare destroyer and frigates. In 2000, he was appointed as commanding officer of the training ship Lion in Brest. He attended the Combat System and Naval Weapons School (ESCAN) in Saint-Mandrier, where he studied ASW between 2001 and 2002. He was then posted on board DDGH Tourville in Brest, as ASW department head and operation officer. For three years, he took part in many deployments, in the Indian Ocean for operations against terrorism as well as in the Atlantic Ocean, escorting the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. He was assigned to his first ashore posting in 2005, as aide-de-camp to French Defence Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie. In 2007, he became the commanding officer of Enseigne de vaisseau Jacoubet frigate for 18 months. He took part in two deployments in the Indian Ocean in support of ENDURING FREEDOM operation. He was then appointed to the Naval Training School in Saint-Mandrier as head of the ASW department. In 2009, he attended the French Advanced Command and Staff Course “Ecole de Guerre”, and subsequently joined the Navy Recruitment Service, being in charge of the officers’ recruitment policy. From 2013 to 2015, captain Bossu was posted to the Navy Headquarters, where he took charge of various financial issues, especially Navy budget programming. In 2015, he came back to the Navy Recruitment Service as executive officer and was promoted as captain on December 1st, 2015. He got another position at sea from 2016 to 2018 as executive officer of DDGMH Aquitaine and was deployed in the Northern Atlantic and in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, taking part in military operations against ISIS. He was in command of DDGMH Auvergne from July 2018 to July 2020. During this period, he was involved three times in support of operations against ISIS in the Eastern Med, including one in escort of French Carrier Strike Group. He attended Senior Course 137 in NATO Defence College in Rome from September 2020 to February 2021. After 6 months in French “Ecole de Guerre” as a teacher, he joined the French Joint Strategic Operations Centre (Centre de planification et de conduite des opérations – CPCO) as CJ3 and Deputy “current OPS”. He was in charge when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and during NEO in Kaboul in Summer 2021 and in Sudan in spring 2023. Since July 2023, captain Yannick Bossu is Deputy Commander of the French Strike Force (FRSTRIKEFOR). He was in command of Combined Task Force 150 in Bahrain form September 2023 to January 2024, and of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 in Mediterranean Sea from April to July 2024. Aged 51, he was promoted officer of the “Légion d’honneur” in 2024, and he is also officer of the French National Order of Merit.