The Ventôse is a light monitoring frigate ("frégate de surveillance") of the French Marine Nationale

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...

. She is the fourth ship of her class, and the first French vessel named after Ventôse

Ventôse

Ventôse was the sixth month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the Latin word ventosus, which means windy.Ventôse was the third month of the winter quarter . It started between 19 February and 21 February. It ended between 20 March and 21 March...

, the 5th month of the Republican Calendar

French Republican Calendar

The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871...

. She was used in the French response to Hurricane Katrina

French response to Hurricane Katrina

France was one of the first nations to offer aid to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. On August 31, French officials expressed their condolences to their American counterparts: President Jacques Chirac wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, and the Minister of Foreign...

.

The Ventôse took part in the recovery operation for the Air France Flight 447

Air France Flight 447

Air France Flight 447 was a scheduled airline flight from Rio de Janeiro-Galeão to Paris-Roissy involving an Airbus A330-200 aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009, killing all 216 passengers and 12 aircrew. The investigation is still ongoing, and the cause of the...

which crashed some 960 kilometres off the northeast coast of Brazil on the 1st of June 2009.