The Commandant Rivière class was a type of frigates built for the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

 in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Labeled "aviso

Aviso

An aviso , a kind of dispatch boat or advice boat, survives particularly in the French navy, they are considered equivalent to the modern sloop....

-escorteur" (fr: "sloop-escort"), they were designed to perform the role of overseas patrol in peacetime and Anti-Submarine escort in wartime.

Four similar ships were built for the Portuguese Navy

Portuguese Navy

The Portuguese Navy is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defence of Portugal....

 as the João Belo class frigate

João Belo class frigate

The João Belo class, also known as Comandante João Belo class, is a class of four frigates of French design, identical to the Commandant Rivière class, with extra equipment for tropical climates...

. The ships had accommodation for an 80-man commando detachment with two fast landing boats, each capable of landing 25 men.

All French units were decommissioned in the mid-1990s, save for three frigates that were sold to the Uruguayan Navy

Military of Uruguay

The Armed Forces of Uruguay consist of an army, navy, and air force. These three branches are constitutionally subordinate to the president through the Minister of Defense...

.

Ships

All French ships were built by Arsenal de Lorient

Pennant	Name	Namesake	Commissioned	Fate
F725	Victor Schoelcher	Victor Schoelcher Victor Schoelcher Victor Schoelcher was a French abolitionist writer in the 19th century and the main spokesman for a group from Paris who worked for the abolition of slavery, and formed an abolition society in 1834...	1962	Sold to Uruguay 1988 as the General Artigas
F726	Commandant Bory	Victor Bory	1964	Decommissioned late 1990s
F727	Admiral Charner	Léopold Victor Charner	14 December 1962	Sold to Uruguay 1991 as the Montevideo
F 728	Doudart de Lagrée	Ernest Doudart de Lagrée Ernest Doudart de Lagrée Ernest Marc Louis de Gonzague Doudart de Lagrée was the leader of the French Mekong Expedition of 1866-1868.He was born in Saint-Vincent-de-Mercuze near Grenoble, France, and graduated from the École Polytechnique...	1 May 1963	Decommissioned 1991
F729	Balny	Adrien-Paul Balny d'Avricourt	1 February 1970	Decommissioned 1994
F 733	Commandant Rivière	Henri Rivière	4 December 1962	Trials ship 1986 - decommissioned late 1990s
F740	Commandant Bourdais	Adrien Bourdais	10 March 1963	Sold to Uruguay 1990 as the Uruguay
F748	Protet	Auguste Léopold Protet Auguste Léopold Protet Auguste Léopold Protet was a French Navy admiral. He founded Dakar, fought in the Second Opium War, and was killed in the Taiping Rebellion at the Fengxian District of Shanghai on the afternoon of May 17, 1862...	1 May 1964	Decommissioned 1992
F749	Enseigne de Vaisseau Henry	Paul Henry	1 January 1965	Decommissioned 1994