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Meanwhlle a UK-based industry leader has said France’s reaction was “extraordinarily over the top”. Cyrille Fournier, who represents the prosecutor’s office for the French port of Le Havre where the boat was seized, said in a statement that the captain of the Cornelis Gert Jan boat had been asked to appear in court on August 11, 2022.
He added that the trawler did not have the required licences to operate in those parts of French territorial waters.
This has been denied by Scottish company Macduff Shellfish, which used the boat and has said it did have the appropriate licences.
On Thursday, Britain denounced France’s seizure of the British boat and warned Paris against further retaliation, in the rapidly deteriorating row over the post-Brexit fishing rights.
The Cornelis Gert Jan, a scallop dredger, was escorted to the northern port of Le Havre after its crew failed to prove it was allowed to fish in French territorial waters.
Jim Portus, chairman of the Scallops Industry Consultation Group, said French authorities are being “extraordinarily over the top”, as the row over the detained British trawler continues.
“France was part of the negotiations for the TCA (Trade and Co-operation Agreement), they knew what the rules were,” he told Sky News.
“The rules can’t be changed for France when they are applied to all the nations of the EU.
“So I think that France are being extraordinarily over the top in their treatment of British fishing vessels in this case and definitely they need to wind things down.”
Mr Portus added that if certain terms of the TCA need to be renegotiated, it is not a job for “hot-heated individuals”.
(More to follow)
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