in Calais, French fishermen demonstrated for access to British waters

On the access gates to the freight terminal in Calais, a message written in black letters on a white banner sums up the fishermen’s message: “Give us back our licenses”. The fishermen are mobilizing, Friday, November 26, to challenge Europe and the government of Boris Johnson. Coming from Normandy, Brittany or Hauts-de-France, they disrupted ferry traffic to England. In Calais, the fishermen blocked the port for an hour at midday and in the afternoon, for two hours, no freight truck has entered the Channel Tunnel anymore. They are still asking for the regularization of fishing licenses in British waters. There are 150 missing, according to the French government.

Bruno Dachicourt of the CFTC union is proud to see a hundred fishermen coming from Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne to send a message to the English. “They took back their waters. We know very well that we are at home, we understood that. We were supposed to be partners, that they prove to us that we can be partners. Unfortunately, with the English c ‘s always like this: we have a lot of hopes and then big disappointments “, he said.

“The mobilization is up to our disappointments.”

Bruno Dachicourt, CFTC fishermen’s union

to franceinfo

Once the barriers are placed across the road, no more trucks pass. Dozens of English, Spanish, German and French heavyweights are standing still. This blockage is economical but far from commensurate with the damage caused by the loss of licenses.

Mathieu Pinto is 29 years old, he is one of those who can no longer go and cast their nets in British waters, he must fish much further offshore. “Before we only had an hour and a half to go to English waters to fish, now we need four hours. Four hours to go, four hours back. We have to stay in the area, too, because there are Dutch, French, everything … Whereas before, we could leave them, we gave our points to the English and everything went very well “, explains the fisherman. “Next week we are going to have bad weather. If we had had the license, we could have gone to sea because we are close to our fishing grounds”. He estimates the loss at 10,000 euros in one week.

The fishermen of Hauts de France are awaiting the regularization of 35 licenses. They blame Europe for not having fought enough and London for having led them by boat.

After two hours of blockage, the barrier was lifted. But perched in the back of a truck, Olivier Leprêtre the president of the regional fisheries committee of Hauts-de-France, invites the demonstrators to stay on the alert. “If nothing ever changes, I think we’ll have to do something similar. Maybe target British imports. We might have to move on to that.”, warns the fisherman.

The next deadline is December 10. The European Commission left London until then to regularize the situation of unlicensed fishermen.