Demonstration of fishermen in Rennes to protest against “regulations”, March 22, 2023 (AFP / DAMIEN MEYER)
“We would like to make us mad that we would not do better”: the national fisheries committee says the distress of a profession weakened by Brexit, European regulations and a feeling of abandonment in an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron.
“I have never seen such a surge of attacks (…). Food sovereignty, everyone talks about it, but when it comes to making it a reality, there is no one left”, writes the chairman of the committee Olivier Le Nézet to Emmanuel Macron, in a letter that AFP was able to consult on Wednesday.
He evokes “attacks” that have become “intolerable” because they “call into question the foundation of our profession, feeding the French and Europeans”.
In the background, a sector hard hit by the Covid health crisis and then by Brexit, which resulted in the scrapping of 90 ships, and more recently by the European Commission’s “action plan” aimed at to eliminate bottom fishing (trawls, dredges, etc.) in marine protected areas by 2030.
Monday, a decision of the Council of State set fire to the powder: the highest French administrative court, seized by associations for the defense of the environment, gave six months to the government to close certain fishing areas in the Atlantic. in order to preserve the dolphins whose strandings have multiplied in the Bay of Biscay.
“For five years, our fishermen have been at the initiative of scientific and technical programs to determine avoidance solutions (sonars, observations, special nets to keep cetaceans away, editor’s note), to reconcile fishing activities and dolphin protection (. ..). The Council of State has just questioned everything”, affirms Olivier Le Nezet, specifying that the national committee was studying “the possibility of an appeal”.
Clashes during a demonstration by fishermen in Rennes on March 22, 2023 (AFP / DAMIEN MEYER)
On Wednesday, several hundred fishermen demonstrated in Rennes in a tense atmosphere to protest against “the regulations”, evoking pell-mell the decision of the Council of State, the price of maritime diesel and the “lack of listening of the State “.
Questioned by AFP, Mr. Le Nezet “obviously condemned” the violent outbursts – a tractor was launched in the direction of the police – while emphasizing the “distress of an entire profession”.
“It seems that the state no longer sees a future for our sector”, he summarizes in his letter to the president, asking “a break in this avalanche of bad shots”.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
