page_title: Operation Manta
section_title: French intervention
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Manta / French intervention
caption_attribution_description: Shaded relief map of Chad, 1991, produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
context_page_description: Operation Manta is the code name for the French military intervention in Chad between 1983 and 1984, during the Chadian-Libyan conflict. The operation was prompted by the invasion of Chad by a joint force of Libyan units and Chadian Transitional Government of National Unity rebels in June 1983. While France was at first reluctant to participate, the Libyan air-bombing of the strategic oasis of Faya-Largeau starting on July 31 led to the assembling in Chad of 3,500 French troops, the biggest French intervention since the end of the colonial era.
  The French troops, instead of attempting to expel the Libyan forces from Chad, drew a "line in the sand". They concentrated their forces on the 15th parallel, the so-called "Red Line," to block the Libyan and GUNT advance towards the N'Djamena, thus saving the Chadian President Hissène Habré. The Libyan and rebel forces also avoided attacking across the Red Line and provoking the French. The resulting impasse led to the de facto partition of Chad, with the Libyans and the GUNT in the north and Habré and the French in central and southern Chad.
context_section_description: Faced with the collapse of the GUNT-Libyan offensive, Gaddafi increased his force commitment forces in Chad. Libyan MiGs bombed Faya-Largeau on the day after it was recaptured by FANT, in the first undisguised Libyan intervention in the crisis. A force of 11,000 Libyan troops, complete with armour and artillery, was airlifted into the Aouzou Strip, to support the GUNT forces, along with eighty combat aircraft, a considerable portion of the Libyan Air Force. Habré entrenched himself in Faya-Largeau with 5,000 troops, but he could not match the massive Libyan firepower, losing a third of his army and being forced out of Faya and retreating 200 miles south.
  Habré issued a fresh plea for French military assistance on August 6. French President François Mitterrand, under pressure from the US and Francophone African states, announced on August 9 his determination to contain Gaddafi. A ground force was rapidly dispatched from the bordering Central African Republic, beginning Operation Manta.
  The first French contingents were deployed north of N'Djamena at points on the two possible routes of advance on the capital. Fighter aircraft and antitank helicopters were dispatched to Chad to discourage an attack on N'Djamena. As the buildup proceeded, forward positions were established roughly along the 15th parallel from Mao in the west to Abéché in the east (the so-called "Red Line"), which the French tried to maintain as the line separating the combatants. This force eventually rose to become the largest expeditionary force ever assembled by France in Africa since the Algerian War, reaching 3,500 troops and several squadrons of Jaguar fighter-bombers.
caption: A map of Chad including the 15th parallel (the Red Line) where the French separated government and rebel forces
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