 "L'Audacieux" then began escorting convoys evacuating personnel from mainland France to French North Africa and screened cruisers fruitlessly searching for Italian cruisers on 23–24 June after an erroneous report that they were at sea.After the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July, the ship escorted the cruisers that failed to rendezvous with "Strasbourg", which escaped to Toulon.By the end of August, all of French Equatorial Africa had joined Free France, with the exception of French Gabon.