In this photo taken Wednesday, March 18, 2015, a French military plane lands on the French navy aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the Persian Gulf.

France carried out its first surveillance flights over Syria on Tuesday to prepare possible attacks on Islamic State jihadists, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

“These surveillance flights will determine what action can be taken when the time comes,” Fabius told reporters.

The flights began the day after President Francois Hollande changed strategy on Syria, saying he was ordering surveillance flights to begin because he wanted to find out “what is being prepared against us and what is being done against the Syrian population”.

The army said two planes equipped with cameras had taken off from a base in the Persian Gulf and returned safely.