French politician: fishermen could block Channel Tunnel in Brexit license dispute

PARIS (Reuters) – French fishermen could block the Channel Tunnel linking France and the United Kingdom in protest over the allocation of post-Brexit fishing licences, warned French member of parliament Jean-Pierre Pont on Wednesday.

“Be warned,” said Pont, who is a member of parliament for President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling La Republique en Marche party, representing the coastal town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. “Since the British are refusing to honour what they signed, as with other Anglo-Saxons in another area, the French fishermen of Boulogne-sur-Mer may be obliged, after 9 months of useless patience, to envisage ways to retaliate against the UK – for example by blocking ports or the entry of lorries towards the UK through the tunnel,” added Pont.

France accused Britain of playing politics with post-Brexit fishing rights on Wednesday, after London granted licenses to fish in its territorial waters to only 12 small French boats out of 47 applications. Fishing rights have been one of the key battlegrounds between Britain and France in their post-Brexit negotiations. Earlier this year, a dispute over the licences led both France and Britain to send patrol vessels off the shores of Jersey, which is a self-governing British Crown Dependency.

Diplomatic relations between France and the UK have hit a low point in recent weeks. Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told France to get a grip and give allies in the United States and Australia a break over a row about a trilateral nuclear submarine deal that tore up a separate French contract.