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In a fascinating historical return, coastal warfare and the theories of the Jeune Ecole are to the point again. This was recently illustrated by Operation Harmattan (Libya, 2011) and the joint amphibious exercises Bold Alligator and Corsican Lion in 2012, with the French “BPC” in the forefront. The strategic and operational evolution of coastal warfare, from the First World War to the Second World War landings, nevertheless took place in the context of a background rivalry between the Army and the Navy that was arbitrated, politically and financially, by a Parliament focused on frontier defence and under the constraint of international relations in the Mediterranean, principally with Italy. Between the two wars, the French Navy managed, however, to design and build an efficient defence of its bases, far too long ignored and wrongfully attributed to the German Occupation.