Prime Minister Johnson is sending two naval ships to the British island of Jersey off the coast of France. The patrol vessels will monitor the situation in the area as the conflict between the United Kingdom and France over fishing rights threatens to get out of hand.
According to a spokesperson for Johnson, this is a “precautionary measure”. There is, he says, “an urgent need to calm tensions and for a dialogue between Jersey and France on fishermen’s access”. After the departure of the British from the European Union, a conflict has arisen about the conditions under which European fishermen are allowed to enter British waters.
Shut off electricity
The authorities on the largest Channel Island, which is not part of the United Kingdom but a British Crown property, believe that the French have gone too far by threatening to cut off the island’s electricity temporarily. French minister Annick Girardin (Zee) said in parliament that she will not hesitate to use this “retaliatory measure” if the British continue to oppose French fishermen. Most of the electricity transmission on the island is via a submarine cable from France.
Girardin found out last Friday that the British have imposed new access conditions on French fishermen, allowing them to be in the area shorter and to remove fewer types of fish from the water. The list of 41 French fishing boats on which new conditions have been imposed, she says, is not part of the Brexit agreement between the UK and the EU and “completely unacceptable”. The British, in turn, called Girardin’s threat “clearly unacceptable and disproportionate”.
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