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PARIS — France inaugurated its first military base in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, underlining an ambition to help meet the strategic challenge from Iran and capture a share of the region’s rich arms market for the French defense industry.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a one-day visit to the United Arab Emirates’ capital, formally opened a 900-foot quay allocated to the French navy in Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Port. A French airbase and several hundred French soldiers are stationed nearby.
The outposts are France’s first permanent overseas military installations outside its former colonies in Africa in 50 years.
