The fishermen and the deputies Patrick Vignal and Irène Tolleret went up the current with force and persuasion to cancel the will of Brussels to prohibit this activity six consecutive months.
Every morning he yearns for his eel. When the alarm clock rings at 5 a.m., it’s almost the liberating sound of a night of not fishing for it. From his shorts and his knees in the air that tanned under the sun that beat down the banks of the Lunel canal, Roland Guerrero, 71 years old today, is passionate about freshwater fish. Eel. It’s a story. All of its history. Until transmitting it, with a certain love and know-how, to his son Nicolas.
Shunned here, a dish very popular with Asians
From the waters of Lune to those of the Etang de l’Or, the Pescalune practices its passion every day that Neptune offers it. From these fresh and salty expanses, it is extracted, the best years, up to fifty tons of eels.
As an adult, it is fished mainly in Occitania, the Basque Country and Corsica, while on the Atlantic coast, landing net and net pros take it out at the elver stage, the eel fry, another delight for gourmets. However, if the serpentiform fish delights the palates, mainly Asian, it is almost no longer consumed in France at maturity. “Today, it is a noble dish that the Japanese, the Chinese… are particularly fond of. Other countries love it whereas here, before, it was the dish of the poor. Its consumption has gradually little lost”regrets Roland Guerrero, who always keeps a few on the side to taste them in his hut by the canal, among connoisseur friends.
“With the Washington convention (signed on March 3, 1973 and regulating the international trade in species of wild fauna and flora threatened with extinction, editor’s note), eels could not be exported outside the European Union. 80% of fishing goes to Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Germany.” The one who advances his figures and dates as a great connoisseur of the subject is Laurent Pezzotti. A naturalist by training, he is above all, at the age of 54, the number 2 of the prud’homie of Palavas, a professional and jurisdictional community of fishing bosses.
He did not think, fifty years after the signing in the American capital which greatly limited the export of eel, having to lead a new fight for the respect of the slender fish and especially of those who fish it. “It was in December, it happened from the regional committee of prud’homies. We were informed that Europe wanted to close eel fishing for six consecutive months a year, with January, February and March obligatorily. Nonsenseexplains the prud’homme palavasien, before arguing: The eel is in charge. It is she who paces the fishing. A fishing that we want reasoned, controlled and in respect of the cycle. The period that Europe wanted to impose included the most prosperous weeks for fishermen. Without any logic and without any knowledge.”
“Adapt the measures to the realities of the territories”
Gaps in the lagoon that Roland Guerrero cannot stand. On learning the bad news, he grabs his phone and joins his friend and deputy Patrick Vignal. The two men have known each other for years, in particular for having made the future President and the then Minister of the Economy, Emmanuel Macron, sail on the waters of Lune. “It was May 2016. I even gave him my lucky seahorse. Patrick was there.” As he will be there during the phone call of this month of December 2022. “It was short. I heard: “Patrick, we are in deep shit. Come help us!”.
For the deputy, no time to dabble. It is headlong that he plunges into the file with Irène Tolleret, his European colleague, also a member of the Republic on the move (now Renaissance). In the shadows, the sizeable support of the prefect Hugues Moutouh. Their interlocutor: Hervé Berville, Secretary of State for the Sea. Politics understands what is at stake; man, the value of local know-how. “Ils (fishermen and elected officials, Editor’s note) convinced me that their activity should be defended, that it was an essential element of the heritagerelates Hervé Berville. The actors of the territories must be listened to, heard. And we must adapt the measures to the realities of these territories.”
It took just one – but long – night of negotiations to save the eel. At least its fishing, shall we say, clever. If the ban is indeed for six months – always with January, February and March compulsory – the fishermen of the famous fish have obtained to split the other three months in the rest of the year and as they wish.
Tomorrow morning, first thing in the morning, Roland Guerrero will turn on the engine of his boat as soon as the first reflections of the sun’s rays on the Etang de l’Or. The anxiety passed, he will come up from the waters his capped. From these long funnel-shaped traps – which allow for selective fishing – he will probably extract beautiful, wriggling eels that have grown up here. But will remain, well attached to the mesh, its vigilance.
