the Hauts-de-France regional fisheries committee calls for “retaliatory measures”

Under the guise of protecting the environment, the United Kingdom is banning its waters from fishing, to the great dismay of professionals in Hauts-de-France who denounce “a masquerade”. They claim the British are trying to reclaim these fishing grounds for them.

From Friday, the 110 boats from Nord and Pas-de-Calais will no longer be able to work in part of English waters. The United Kingdom actually bans fishing in three areas in the Channel to protect biodiversity. “That’s a charade, protests Olivier Leprêtre, the president of the Hauts-de-France regional fisheries committee, on France Bleu Nord on Thursday March 21.It’s just a way to get their water back. The English are not impacted because there are very few fleets and the few that there are are boats that make the net and the trap.”

According to him, it is a disguised desire, under the guise of ecology, to recover British waters. “It’s still a desire that dates back more than 20 years and even more particularly since the English left Europe”. He notes that “the English are busy building new boats, with the intention of exploiting their waters as best they can.”

“Europe does not defend us enough”

The ban on access to these marine protected areas represents a real loss for the fishing economy in France, believes Olivier Leprêtre who calls for “retaliatory measures”. “These are areas where we work mainly at the end of the year, where we make a large part of our turnover. When there is the passage of squid from October to January, we are in all these areas and Obviously that causes us a big loss of turnover.”he regrets.

“It’s the industry that will take a hit, whether it’s the fishermen on the front line and then the entire Boulogne processing industry.”

Olivier Leprêtre president of the Hauts-de-France regional fishing committee

at France Bleu Nord

Olivier Leprêtre talks about “sacrificed profession” and fears a “report” boats in the strait, where French, English, Dutch and Belgian boats are already fishing and a “overexploitation of the resource”. “We are heading towards annihilation, we cannot afford it.”

The fisherman believes that Europe does not protect the industry enough. “Europe must also set up marine protected areas (…) We are told about food sovereignty every day, we do quite the opposite in Europe.” The only possible outcome according to him would be “to find techniques that are a little less impactful”with “a little less heavy equipment and different techniques”. “On the European side, I think we would be able to negotiate but on the English side I think it will not be negotiable,” predicts Olivier Leprêtre. Fishermen would like there to be “retaliatory measures [vis-à-vis du Royaume-Uni]. Europe does not defend us enough (…) One day we will have to make them understand that they are not respecting the Brexit agreement.”concludes Olivier Leprêtre.