Unlike Canada's claims to the North Pole - "Santa is Canadian, eh" - and Hans Island, the British-French dispute could actually hurt relations quite seriously.
Do not underestimate the level of pettiness we are about to encounter
The great Anglo-French fish war of 2021 has begun.
Two British scallop boats were challenged by the “Gendarmerie Maritime” in the Bay of the Seine on Wednesday morning.
One had no licence for French waters and was forced into Le Havre to face charges. The other refused at first to stop and was charged with trying to evade controls (although it had otherwise done nothing wrong).
In fact, this was probably just a routine check by the French maritime authorities. It has been spun nonetheless by Paris as part of France’s escalation of a bad-tempered and seemingly trivial dispute with the UK over post-Brexit fishing licences. Just today, France’s Europe minister said that the UK only understands the “language of force”.
Now it is threatening from next Tuesday to impose pettifogging bureaucracy on trucks arriving in France from Britain — something that could gum up the Channel Tunnel and Channel ports and further disrupt Britain’s already suffering post-Brexit trade with the continent.
There is also a secondary threat by Paris to reduce or increase the bill for electricity supplies from France to Jersey and Britain — but not to cut off cross-Channel power cables as originally and foolishly threatened.
The dispute between two neighbours and allies and deeply intertwined defence partners (Brexit or no Brexit) may appear absurdly overblown. Fisheries are a tiny part of the economy in both countries: 0.06% of GDP in France; 0.1% in the UK.....
....MUCH MORE
And Previously:
"French Navy ready to act if Scallop War clashes erupt again"
I thought the last contretemps had ended up in a Coquilles Saint-Jacques digression but see instead that for some reason I started blathering about Scotland:
"Macron vows to defend French farmers, fishermen in uncertain year"
I won't get into Nicola Sturgeon and the possible EU fishing fiasco with the Common Fisheries Policy and the Scots yearning to breathe free or at least as members of the EU and the trade deficit with England and the decline of the North Sea oil and frankly it gets a bit confusing.
