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Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet at the G20 summit in Italy this Sunday, October 31. Their exchanges will allowthey calm things down on the fishing issue? Concern is strong among French sailors.
In Boulogne-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais, Maxime Fait is increasingly worried. This fisherman does not have the license issued by the United Kingdom. For him, it is impossible to move in British waters, so his fishing area is very small. Normally, he fishes for squid, a species that evolves offshore, but this year, he had to fall back on the shell St Jacques and buy 20,000 euros of equipment. “Our job is to go trawling on the English side or the French side, but not to do 36 jobs”, he regrets.
A few hundred meters from the port, other professions are also waiting, such as matchmakers. Marine SAS receives 7,000 tonnes of Scottish salmon each year. It will therefore suffer if France carries out its threats of sanctions against the British. “If tomorrow, we prevent fish from entering the French market, we will really shoot each other out, it involves several thousand jobs”, says Arnaud Delegorge, general manager of the company. All players in the fishing world hope that tensions will ease between France and the United Kingdom by Tuesday, November 2.