During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the growing animosity since Brexit between English fishermen and their French counterparts passed a milestone. According to several sources, a British trawler “attacked” a French fishing boat, arousing the anger of the regional fisheries committee and the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand.
“A British fishing vessel, the Henk Seniorallegedly deliberately attacked a French fishing vessel, the Rose de Cascia », said Xavier Bertrand in a letter of protest sent to Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of the Sea and Fisheries.
A cable to pull the French ship back
According to the boss of the region, the British acted in this way to “drive the French ship out of its work zone,” “at the risk of the lives of the crew.” To our colleagues from Ici Nord, the regional fisheries committee explained that “the English fishermen threw a grappling hook which caught on the cable connecting the French boat to its net, then pulled on the cable, taking away the French trawler backwards.” There were no injuries but the Rose de Cascia lost his net.
For Xavier Bertrand, this event goes far beyond the usual problems of cohabitation between fishermen following Brexit. For the attention of the minister, he adds that this is “an explicit attempt to distance our artisanal fishermen from their fishing zone”. According to our information, the collision took place “inside British waters”, an increasingly restricted fishing territory for French vessels.
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A complaint was filed by the shipowner of the Rose de Cascia near the public prosecutor's office in Boulogne-sur-Mer, the trawler's home port.
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