The seventeen fishing boats soured each other over Britain and France, but to the point where the London government sent two warships to the Guadalcanal by dawn on Thursday.
The conflict escalated over two interpretations of Brexit rules. Since Brexit, there have been a number of complex methods of calculating where and how far European fishermen can access British waters. Although fisheries provides a very small slice of the economies of the countries concerned, with their powerful trade unions, impressive demonstrations and symbolic occupations, they also play an important political role in France, Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
Photo: GLYN KIRK / AFP
The intense controversy now began with the administration of the Channel Island, which belongs to Britain but is closer to the French coast, one by one, allowing a French fishing vessel that could be entitled to catch fish from the island again this year.
In order to obtain a license, French ships had to demonstrate that they had a “historic right” to fish – a license whose ship had fished there for at least ten days in a 12-month period for the past three years. Anyone who proves this will be given a lighthouse identification hull to be placed on fishing vessels over 12 meters in length, after which the British will leave it alone.
Of the applicants, 41 ships were licensed for the current season, but 17 were refused. According to the authorities of Jersey, rightly, according to the French fishermen, unjustly.
Photo: OLI SCARFF / AFP
Since then, the situation has escalated:
French fishermen announced that they would take out a hundred boats off Jersey Harbor in front of St. Helier on Thursday for a living.
The Jersey leadership feared the parade was a blockade and the Fishermen wanted to cut the island off from the outside world, so John Le Fondry, the island’s prime minister, alerted the London government.
Help arrived immediately, and two small warships were directed to the island, HMS Severn and HMS Tamar that guard the Jersey shores from Thursday.
The Minister for Maritime Affairs of the French government also entered into the debate: Annick Girardin said that if fishermen in Jersey were treated unfairly, the island’s power would be cut off. They can do this because they receive electricity from France via three submarine cables from Jersey.
In response, the local oil plant was put on standby on the island of Jersey so that there would be electricity even if the French shut it down. And local leaders promised that it would be more expensive and polluted than the current system, but it would not darken the island.
