At the beginning of March, French fishermen had raised their voices against soaring fuel prices, organizing the blocking of the oil depots of Brest (Finistère) and Lorient (Morbihan), filter dams on the Normandy bridge, leaving their boats at the quay at the Tréport (Seine-Maritime) as in Guilvinec (Finistère). The state’s response, then, was not long in coming.
“We will not let the fishermen down”, came to assure the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, on March 15, at the prefecture of Brittany, in Rennes. Aid of 35 euro cents on the price of a liter was offered two days later, through a reduction in employer contributions. Of the 4,000 applications received by the Ministry of the Sea, 2,733 had been processed by April 25, 8.8 million euros in aid paid.
When, the 1er April, the resilience plan entered into force, the aid system for fishermen has evolved: like all French people, they benefit from the reduction of 15 cents directly at the pump. Additional aid of 20 cents on each liter of fuel was to make it possible to maintain, until July 31, the level of support at 35 cents per liter.
“The first device, in March, was quite simple, it worked very well. But the implementation of the second, 20 cents, is still under discussion,” notes Antony Viera, Secretary General of the Boulogne-sur-Mer Fisheries Committee (Pas-de-Calais). “We still do not know how they will be paid and by what mechanism”, adds Xavier Leduc, president of the Union of French Fishing Shipowners (UAPF), who, alongside the National Association of Producer Organizations, has been warning about the situation since mid-April.
The “Frequently Asked Questions” on the Ministry of the Sea website itself reveals a difficulty, stating that this additional aid is “being set up within the limits of the ceilings per single company set at European level. »
European regulations
Public aid for fishing is strictly regulated by European regulations. Thus, those that a State can grant on a very exceptional basis to its fishermen without referring to Brussels are capped at 30,000 euros over three years. A sum to which the European resilience plan has added 35,000 euros, i.e. a maximum of 65,000 euros per fishing company.
However, the fishermen as the departments estimate that if the sum can be enough for a company of only one small vessel which fishes with the net, the hole in the treasury of those which fish in high sea, with several trawlers, largely exceeds this ceiling. France has asked the European Commission to raise it and is still awaiting its response.
You have 28% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.