According to Nathalie Guibert of Le Monde, the French and British military General Staff negotiated the division of Libyan waters between their respective submarines a month before NATO’s intervention, that is when the Benghazi disorders erupted.

The French daily further reported that four nuclear attack submarines (SNA) were deployed off the coast of Libya during Operation "Unified Protector". One of them allegedly started running intelligence missions by end of February.

Such reports partially corroborate what Voltaire Network witnessed directly in the theater of operations: French and British regular forces, but also Italian and Saudi irregular forces, had been deployed since 17 February 2011. They turned a blind eye to the 15 February massacre (in the event of Nasserists and Marxists for a constitution) [1], but tagged along with the 17 February demonstration (that rallied Senussi supporters against the Mohammad caricatures) [2].

"Le rôle discret des sous-marins français dans les opérations en Libye", by Nathalie Guibert, Le Monde, 8 November 2011.

[1] This massacre was attributed by the UN to Gaddafi, but according to the organizers of the event, it was perpetrated by Al Qaeda assets.

[2] One of the three principal reasons for the revolt in Benghazi and the call by the 61 tribal leaders against Gaddafi was the belief that the secret sponsor behind the Mohammad caricatures was Gaddafi himself. The 17 February demonstration celebrated the memory of the Islamic militants killed by police forces during a previous protest against the Mohammad caricatures in front of the Danish consulate. At the time, the Europeans had thanked the Jamahiriya for having defended the consulate in accordance with the Vienna Convention.