Britain is set to dispatch four Royal Navy ships to patrol UK waters
Credit: Laurent Villeret / Dolce vita
Sitting in his office by the northern French port of Boulogne-sur-mer, mayor Frédéric Cuvillier called for calm.
“Do you really want a Falklands war on your doorstep in Guernsey or Jersey?,” he asked.
“Talk of gunboats may flatter the jingoistic ego on either side of the Channel but it will not help us reach a deal," he said.
Mr Cuvillier was referring to reports that Britain will dispatch four Royal Navy ships to patrol UK waters to ward off “illegal fishing if a post-Brexit trade deal is not reached.
“Rather than sending boats out to pick up fishermen, would it not be better to send them out to check whether migrations are drowning? People are dying in the Channel,” he said.
A few hundred yards away, Loic Merlin, 33, drew into the port on his family fishing boat loaded with whelks and crabs — all caught six miles off the coast of England.
Fisherman in Boulogne-sur-mer catch up to 100 per cent of their fish in UK waters
Credit: Laurent Villeret/Laurent Villeret / Dolce vita
“We can see the coast clearly most days,” said the weary captain of the 12m (40ft) Saint-Jules, after a night on rough seas.
Loic has been fishing in British waters since the age of 14 but that nightly cross-Channel tradition may be about to run aground.
With post-Brexit trade talks stuck on fishing rights, the boulonnais made no bones about his future prospects if denied access to UK territorial waters homes to three-quarters of his catch.
“If they really go through with it, it’ll be game over for us," he predicted.
“The Dutch and the Belgians will have to leave (UK waters) too and everyone will comer over here. The sea will be too small for us all. It’ll be war."
Fellow fisherman Jean-Yves Noel, 35, said he had no problems with the British but there could be only one outcome in case of no-deal.
French fishermen threaten to blockade entry of fish from UK waters in case of no-deal
Credit: Laurent Villeret/Laurent Villeret / Dolce vita
“If we can’t fish in their waters, they can’t sell their fish here. We will block their boats and lorries, that is for sure,” predicted the captain of Le Surcouf who fishes for sole in UK waters.
Some are sold at the fish market above the dock, where hackles were raised at the prospect of British gunboats.
“The British government has a cheek. We are not pillagers,” said Elodie Baillet, 36, whose husband Gaetan was out fishing in UK waters on his small blue boat, La Bretonne.
“In that case, we should do the same. They come here and fish our scallops, after all,” she said, referring to the notorious Anglo-French “scallop wars” further down the coast two years ago.
“If they say no, why should we say yes?”
Amid the requests for lobster and sea bass, fellow fishmonger Aurélie Despart popped the question on everyone’s minds. “So are they taking their waters back?”
Fishmonger Elodie Baillet, 36, says she remains optimistic about a deal but otherwise the French should retaliate
Credit: Laurent Villeret/Laurent Villeret / Dolce vita
Disquiet is not just rife among Boulogne’s 25-odd small fisherman but also the 100-odd trawlers and bigger boats the other side of the port.
Xavier Leduc stood before the Klondyke, a 55m-long ‘“fish factory” and one of his six huge vessels catching up to 20,000 tonnes per year mainly off the coast of Scotland.
“My grandfather fished in British waters before the Second World War. I fish 100 per cent in British waters,” said the head of Euronord.
“There has always been rivalry between the British and French but we always muddle through, unless Boris Johnson is mad and wants to set the country on fire,” he said.
Mr Leduc welcomed France’s threat of wielding a veto over fish in talks in Brussels.
“I think it’s good. It’s the British who are leaving, not us so if they want a deal, it’s not for them to write the terms.”
Mr Leduc, who met the prime minister this month when he visited this very boat promising state compensation for Brexit losses, remains convinced a deal will be struck “even if it’s a bad one for the EU, perhaps with less quotas and access”.
EU vessels take almost eight times more fish — five times by value — in UK waters than vice versa, according to figures from the UK’s Marine Management Organisation.
Brexit fishing stocks by fish type (UK vs France)
The EU initially demanded unfettered access to Britain’s waters for 10 years.
After offering a three-year transition period on fishing arrangements, sources say that Britain may now agree to around five years. In return, the EU would have to hand back at least 50 per cent of its fish quotas from January 1 instead of the 18 per cent it is currently offering.
The ongoing stalemate is proving a huge headache for Boulogne, Europe’s biggest fish processing hub. Some 350,000 tons of fish are processed every year here, with around 30 per cent of the tonnage coming from fish caught in UK waters.
Brexit fishing fleets by nation
Putting it bluntly, Mr Leduc said if UK waters were cut off from the French, it would be a case of so long and thanks for all the fish.
"Not one kilo of fish will make it to Boulogne or Europe’s ports," he said.
“It has to be a win-win situation. Access to fishing zones must be linked to access to European markets and trade of fish. Otherwise, what are you going to do with all the lobsters, crabs and other species you currently sell in Europe?,” he asked.
The French insist their fish industry could cope with the sudden 30 per cent drop in seafood caught in UK waters in case of no deal.
“True, we will lose out but you will lose more,” claimed Georges Thomas, president of Boulogne’s wholesale fish merchant’s syndicate.
Loic Merlin fishes six miles off the English coast for lobster, crab, whelks and sea bass
Credit: Laurent Villeret / Dolce vita/ Laurent Villeret
“What amazes me is that the UK exports the vast majority of its fish to Europe and thinks from one day to the next it can forget about it. It’s going to be horrendous,” warned Mr Thomas, who speaks perfect English, is married to a Briton and his two children with dual nationality.
“The real victims of Brexit will be Britain. The French fisherman will howl but they’ll get subsidies. They’ll be alright and we’ll find new markets.”
He said his own fish merchant’s firm has already three alternative projects to UK fish in the pipeline.
In the event of no-deal, it would no longer make sense to import fish from the UK, he said.
“We’d have to pay a 15 per cent custom fee on fresh fish coming into France under WTO rules. The same applies to French fish going to the UK. It’s not worth it and there’s too much red tape,” he said.
Mr Thomas said he was appalled by the bellicose language crossing the Channel.
“When I read in the newspapers that the UK is going to dispatch war vessels, I’m thinking where the hell are we going? Every day I go pass a monument to Anglo-French Entente Cordiale in Boulogne. We’ve been through a lot and now this?,” he asked.
Fishermen bristle at talk of gunboats in the Channel among French fishermen whose catch is in UK waters
Credit: Laurent Villeret
Mayor Cuvillier, a Socialist former minister in the Hollande administration, dismissed such gunboat rhetoric as bluster from a British government seeking to “commodify” fishing rights.
“It’s an ultra-liberal stance that consists in selling a universal resource to the highest bidder while dressing it up in the old attributes of territorial sovereignty,” he sniffed.
“I don’t think UK fishing industry is in a state to catch all its stocks unless the British government turns into a statist one handing out massive subsidies to the fishing industry. That would be a turn up for the books.
“But even if it does, where will it sell the fish?”
Despite the saber-rattling, it was time for the two old foes to bury the hatchet, he insisted.
“The British are not only our neighbours but our friends. We need to take a step back. The UK is leaving the EU but will remain 30km away and we need to continue to have good relations.
“If we want a deal we will find one. It’s in no-one’s interests that this ends badly.”
In the meantime, local French fishermen continue to cross the wine-dark Channel.
As he removed the last crates of crabs from his fishing boat, Mr Merlin squinted in the direction of England.
"There’s a force seven gale tonight but we’re going back out there to fish. We’ll take our chances while we can."
Свежие комментарии