Military orders investigation into how a third of sailors on Charles de Gaulle were infected

The French military has ordered an inquiry into how a third of the crew on its navy’s flagship, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, contracted the coronavirus.

The nuclear-powered vessel had reportedly had no contact with the outside world since it went to sea on 15 March.

Last Friday, the French defence ministry confirmed 50 sailors had Covid-19 and the ship, which was in the Atlantic at the time, was ordered back to base in Toulon on France’s Mediterranean coast. It arrived on Sunday, two weeks earlier than planned.

Since then 668 sailors – one third of the 1,767-strong crew – have tested positive, the French defence ministry confirmed. “Today, 31 of them are in hospital, one in intensive care. We do not have the results for 30% of the tests,” it said in a statement.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sailors from the Charles de Gaulle arrive onshore at Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, near Toulon. Photograph: Jonathan Bellenand/French navy/EPA

The crew members have been placed in isolation for 14 days before being allowed to rejoin their families.

“Operations to disinfect the vessel and aircraft have begun,” said the French defence minister, Florence Parly, who added a message of support for the confined sailors and their families.

The Charles de Gaulle was docked at Brest on France’s western coast between 13-15 March, where the sailors were given shore leave. This was two days before the country’s strict confinement, as the lockdown is known in France.

Adm Christophe Prazuck, the navy’s chief of staff, has ordered an inquiry into the contamination of the vessel.

The Charles de Gaulle, which carries Rafale fighter planes, Hawkeye surveillance and control aircraft as well as Caracal and Cougar helicopters and Aster surface-to-air missiles, had been on exercise since 21 January and spent several weeks in the Mediterranean as part of Opération Chammal, the French contribution to the international anti-terrorist Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.

It then sailed to the North Sea and then the Atlantic for “operations of security and defence” to European sea routes, said the ministry.

In Britain, new aircraft carrier the Queen Elizabeth is due to set sail from Portsmouth for a training exercise later this month, prompting the opposition Labour party to question whether the warship with its 600-strong crew should be setting sail given the fate of its stricken French counterpart.

John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, wrote to Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, on Wednesday to ask whether the UK Ministry of Defence should, in the light of “the concerning reports” involving the French and other warships, “postpone large-scale training exercises”.

The Royal Navy said it is undertaking special measures to minimise the risk of an outbreak, and that the warship could sail to the UK quickly in the event of a crisis. The British navy believes its aircraft carrier is more modern and less cramped than Charles de Gaulle, and the USS Theodore Rooselvelt, where over 600 have been infected from a crew of 4,000 and one sailor has died after a coronavirus infection got out of control.