The French Navy intercepted and boarded the oil tanker "Deliver" on Tuesday while it was transiting off the coast of Sicily in violation of maritime law, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

The operation, carried out days after a similar action by Britain, demonstrated Europe's determination to counter Russia's so-called "shadow fleet," Macron said on the social media platform X.

British Armed Forces intercepted a sanctioned Russian "shadow fleet" oil tanker in the English Channel on June 14, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, in what Britain's Ministry of Defense described as the first British-led operation of its kind.