First Libyan Civil War: The French Air Force launched Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.

The Libyan civil war, also known as the First Libyan Civil War and Libyan Revolution, was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya that was fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Zawiya on 8 August 2009 and finally ignited by protests in Benghazi beginning on Tuesday 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces who fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council.

The French Air and Space Force is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the Service Aéronautique, a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the French Air Force. On 10 September 2020, it assumed its current name, the French Air and Space Force, to reflect an "evolution of its mission" into the area of outer space.

Opération Harmattan was the French participation in the 2011 military intervention in Libya. It was named for the Harmattan, which are hot dry winds that blow over the Sahara, mostly between November and March. The United States' counterpart to this was Operation Odyssey Dawn, the Canadian counterpart was Operation Mobile and the British counterpart was Operation Ellamy. The no-fly zone was proposed during the Libyan Civil War to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi forces. Several countries prepared to take immediate military action at a conference in Paris on 19 March 2011.

On 19 March 2011, a NATO-led coalition began a military intervention into the ongoing Libyan Civil War to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. The UN Security Council passed the resolution with ten votes in favour and five abstentions, with the stated intent to have "an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute 'crimes against humanity' ... [imposing] a ban on all flights in the country's airspace — a no-fly zone — and tightened sanctions on the Muammar Gaddafi regime and its supporters."