French fishing fleets blockade Channel ports
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AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Nisan 16, 2009 00:00
CALAIS, France - French fishermen, who are protesting catch quotas that they call too low for them to earn a living, maintain a blockade of ports on the English Channel, disrupting ferry traffic to the UK. As the blockade costs ferry firms millions of euros, the fishermen plan to continue blocking the ports indefinitely
French fishing fleets blockaded the main ports on the English Channel yesterday in protest at EU fishing quotas, cutting off ferry services to Britain and rejecting an offer of state aid.
Independent fishermen, who say their livelihood is under threat from European Union limits on their catch, have stopped ships entering or leaving the ports of Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk since Tuesday.
The Calais protest was lifted overnight due to rough weather, allowing some ferries to cross to and from Dover, but the 100-strong flotilla of fishing boats was back in place at all three harbors yesterday at daybreak.
"This morning we are blockading all the ports," said Patrick Haezebrouck of the CGT union, part of a labor coalition representing the fishermen.
All cross-Channel ferry and freight traffic was halted yesterday, with port and transport authorities urging car and truck drivers to delay their journey or choose an alternative route. A union representing French ferry crews also threatened to block the main entrance to the Channel Tunnel in support of a strike by fishermen. A spokesman for the CFDT, the main union representing workers at ferry operator SeaFrance, said his members wanted to force the government to address the fishing fleet's complaints and thus get shipping moving again.
"Out of solidarity with the fishermen, if they reach no deal with the government and if the port is still blockaded, we'll go and block the tunnel on Thursday [today] morning, until there is a deal," Eric Verckourtre told AFP.
Margaret and Peter Castle, a British couple in their 60s, on their way home from an Easter break in France, spent the night in their caravan in Calais, along with other stranded travelers from France, Belgium or Poland.
"It wasn't too bad for us - we had food and water," said Margaret Castle. "But the night was very tough for people with children. The water ran out in the dispensers, and the port authorities didn't even hand out any blankets."
P and O ferries said it had cleared a backlog of around 3,000 passengers stuck in Dover and Calais overnight before the blockade resumed, but hundreds more people were expected to descend on Dover during the day.
Police in Kent in southern England were stacking trucks on the hard shoulder on the main highway from London to Dover to ease congestion, while local lawmaker Richard Ashworth urged the fishermen to call off their protest.
’Miserable’ situation
"People across southern England will be thinking, 'Here we go again'. Every time the French blockade a port it makes our lives across southeast England miserable - that's why the French do it. "It is not fair for French fishermen to take out their frustrations on us and turn the M20 into a lorry park," Ashworth said. Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne are separated from England by the 21-mile (34-kilometre) Straits of Dover, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Local fishermen in northern France, many of whom have already reached their quota for cod and sole for the first six months of 2009, are demanding the right to go back out to sea. But both Paris and the European Union have ruled out any renegotiation of this year's quotas, pointing out that French cod quotas have already been boosted 30 percent since last year.
Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Michel Barnier told France Info radio he was ready to meet fishermen today to discuss financial aid instead. But Haezebrouck, who accuses the European Union of seeking to destroy small-scale fishing operations by setting unrealistic quotas, rejected the offer, saying the protestors were not looking for government handouts.
"We don't need aid," he told AFP. "All we want is a new system for managing fisheries, with national or local quotas that allows us to survive. Not this quota system for small-scale fishing that is unbearable. We want hard measures to ensure the survival of our kind of fishing."
Independent fishermen, who say their livelihood is under threat from European Union limits on their catch, have stopped ships entering or leaving the ports of Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk since Tuesday.
The Calais protest was lifted overnight due to rough weather, allowing some ferries to cross to and from Dover, but the 100-strong flotilla of fishing boats was back in place at all three harbors yesterday at daybreak.
"This morning we are blockading all the ports," said Patrick Haezebrouck of the CGT union, part of a labor coalition representing the fishermen.
All cross-Channel ferry and freight traffic was halted yesterday, with port and transport authorities urging car and truck drivers to delay their journey or choose an alternative route. A union representing French ferry crews also threatened to block the main entrance to the Channel Tunnel in support of a strike by fishermen. A spokesman for the CFDT, the main union representing workers at ferry operator SeaFrance, said his members wanted to force the government to address the fishing fleet's complaints and thus get shipping moving again.
"Out of solidarity with the fishermen, if they reach no deal with the government and if the port is still blockaded, we'll go and block the tunnel on Thursday [today] morning, until there is a deal," Eric Verckourtre told AFP.
Margaret and Peter Castle, a British couple in their 60s, on their way home from an Easter break in France, spent the night in their caravan in Calais, along with other stranded travelers from France, Belgium or Poland.
"It wasn't too bad for us - we had food and water," said Margaret Castle. "But the night was very tough for people with children. The water ran out in the dispensers, and the port authorities didn't even hand out any blankets."
P and O ferries said it had cleared a backlog of around 3,000 passengers stuck in Dover and Calais overnight before the blockade resumed, but hundreds more people were expected to descend on Dover during the day.
Police in Kent in southern England were stacking trucks on the hard shoulder on the main highway from London to Dover to ease congestion, while local lawmaker Richard Ashworth urged the fishermen to call off their protest.
’Miserable’ situation
"People across southern England will be thinking, 'Here we go again'. Every time the French blockade a port it makes our lives across southeast England miserable - that's why the French do it. "It is not fair for French fishermen to take out their frustrations on us and turn the M20 into a lorry park," Ashworth said. Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne are separated from England by the 21-mile (34-kilometre) Straits of Dover, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Local fishermen in northern France, many of whom have already reached their quota for cod and sole for the first six months of 2009, are demanding the right to go back out to sea. But both Paris and the European Union have ruled out any renegotiation of this year's quotas, pointing out that French cod quotas have already been boosted 30 percent since last year.
Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Michel Barnier told France Info radio he was ready to meet fishermen today to discuss financial aid instead. But Haezebrouck, who accuses the European Union of seeking to destroy small-scale fishing operations by setting unrealistic quotas, rejected the offer, saying the protestors were not looking for government handouts.
"We don't need aid," he told AFP. "All we want is a new system for managing fisheries, with national or local quotas that allows us to survive. Not this quota system for small-scale fishing that is unbearable. We want hard measures to ensure the survival of our kind of fishing."