Another warship, the "F262 Erfurt" which is described as a UN warship and also as "DE", is now heading for the area at speed from Cyprus. It may be just coincidence.
The track of the French warship is very very odd - with no obvious "pattern". Maybe it is searching the surface to recover floating debris spotted by helicopters or the Orion rather than an undersea search?
The Hugin Explorer has stopped drifting and is now closing at speed on the area where the French warship is.
I would have thought the military world would be OK revealing quite a lot about their ability to detect a distress "pinger" - particulary if they have had time to go to port and pick up suitable hardware. This is not going to reveal much/anything about their ability to detect ships or subs.
Don't assume naval submarines are already set up to search for 37.5khz pingers.
The French sub, The E'meraude, wasn't set up for listening for 37.5khz, nor did they know they were supposed to be, in the initial search for AF447. Looking for Black Boxes wasn't a mission they'd had. Only, maybe, after the batteries for the pingers had died, and it was too late, was The E'meraude possibly set up for 37.5khz. The area the airplane was eventually found in, had been crossed off as already searched by The E'meraude, but they were not equipted to detect 37.5khz. It's deep in the BEA report.
A hard lesson learned, so, I hope, maybe, that mistake won't be repeated.
Knock on wood. It's beginning to sound like the searchers have it under control. May not be long yet.