Hormuz, continued: the mine war resumes, Europe taps its reserves and must defend the law of the sea

The facts

Since Thursday, the Strait of Hormuz has returned to mine warfare. According to a statement from the Revolutionary Guards navy relayed by the Anadolu agency and picked up by Middle East Monitor, a fourth tanker reportedly struck a mine and caught fire on Friday, a supertanker carrying more than two million barrels of crude. Tehran claims these ships were using an "unauthorised" route in the south of the strait, along the Omani coast, and had ignored radio warnings. The Associated Press notes that it was unable to verify these claims and that Iran identified neither the ships nor their crews.

Some facts, however, are established by other sources. The British maritime security centre UKMTO reported a vessel hit on its port side by an unidentified projectile some forty nautical miles south of the Iranian island of Lavan, causing a fire, with no casualties among the crew. According to the Belga dispatch published by La Libre, the Omani navy evacuated the 25 crew members of the RITI, a Panama-flagged ship targeted off the Musandam peninsula. At this stage, nothing makes it possible to link these incidents with certainty to the Iranian claims.

The US military command in the Middle East disputes Tehran's version. According to AP and Gulf News, Centcom says its forces have cleared the strait's main international shipping routes of mines, and states that it has accompanied more than 3,000 commercial vessels over six months.

The positions at stake

For Tehran, the strait has been under its control since the start of the war triggered on 28 February by US and Israeli strikes. Iran demands that ships follow the corridor it designates and coordinate with its forces. Last month it warned that unauthorised ships would face "destruction", AP recalls.

For Washington, freedom of navigation is guaranteed and the recognised routes are safe. But US diplomacy is sending mixed signals. Envoy Tom Barrack told CNN that the two sides were "very close" to an initial understanding, while, according to AP, US officials have asked countries in the region to prepare for a possible resumption of strikes after the 3 November midterm elections. Qatari mediators are back in Tehran, according to the official IRNA agency. According to Gulf News, Washington wants to deal with the nuclear issue first, whereas Tehran first demands the lifting of the blockade of its ports and of oil sanctions.

Analysis: Europe is already paying the bill

This standoff is playing out far from our shores, but its effects are reaching petrol stations and bills. Before the war, a fifth of the world's hydrocarbons passed through this passage about thirty kilometres wide, the Belga dispatch recalls. According to a document seen by Euronews and cited by Tert.am, Brent was trading at 112 dollars on 20 October, compared with about 40 dollars before the conflict.

Europe is already drawing the consequences. According to the same document, eleven member states, including France, Germany and Italy, pledged on Thursday in Luxembourg to draw 20.5 million barrels of diesel from their strategic stocks by the end of January 2027. It was the French Energy Minister, Roland Lescure, who presented the initiative. European Commissioner Dan Jørgensen ruled out the risk of physical shortages, but warned that rising prices would hit the most vulnerable first.

Each side deserves credit for part of its arguments. Washington is right to point out that the law of the sea guarantees the passage of ships through an international strait, and that no state can claim to police it alone. Tehran, for its part, argues that it has been under blockade and strikes for eight months. But neither of these logics offers a way out. Mining a sea lane, if these claims are accurate, amounts to taking civilian crews and the world economy hostage. Preparing a new bombing campaign the day after a domestic election amounts to subordinating the peace of a region to an American political calendar.

The Gaullist tradition has always rejected this face-off. It holds that France does not have to choose between submission to one camp and powerlessness, and that its voice carries when it defends law rather than force. Now is the time to make it heard.

Conclusion: a dual responsibility

France bears an external responsibility and a domestic one. Abroad, it can propose, with its European partners, an initiative at the Security Council for an international observation and mine-clearing mission in the strait under a United Nations mandate, which would be neither American nor Iranian, and support Qatari mediation before 3 November rather than after. At home, drawing on stocks is not enough: if prices stay at this level this winter, aid must be targeted at low-income households, farmers and hauliers, and energy sobriety as well as the exit from oil must once again become priorities of sovereignty.

One question remains that Europe can no longer avoid: how many more crises will it take for it to stop depending on a strait it does not control?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.