A British fishing vessel has been seized by France after a French captain accused British trawlers of plundering his resources in the latest outbreak of the “Scallop War.”
The Scottish fishing boat, named Star of the Jura, was seized on Monday off the coast of Calvados in the Normandy region of northwestern France after it was ordered to enter the port of Le Havre on the Channel. Spot suspected of catching undersized scallops.
The captain, who has not been named, took his 19-metre dredge into port on Saturday while being escorted by a maritime police ship after an inspection uncovered an illegal catch, French authorities revealed.
French inspectors who boarded the Star of Jura found up to a tonne of undersized scallops in its 16-tonne mega catch, with the load taken just outside the Seine Bay fishing zone.
‘We are fed up. Not only do we not have the same standards, but they also come to plunder the resource right in front of our houses!’ said a Norman fishing captain angrily.
The Scottish fishing vessel Star of Jura (pictured) was seized by France on Monday after an inspection uncovered an illegal catch.
French authorities said British ships often use dredging equipment that allows them to bring to the surface scallops less than 11cm in diameter, which is the smallest allowed by law.
According to the rules, fishing for smaller scallops disrupts their reproduction and fishermen are expected to return smaller mollusks to the sea.
After the Scottish boat was diverted into port, local Norman fishermen were left furious at the “penalizing difference in fishing rules”.
‘The English can fish for longer, with less restrictive rules and gear. And we must watch without blinking how they plunder the deposits and threaten the resource in the years to come”, Pascal, fishing skipper of Calvados. he told LeParisien.
The Normandy prosecutor’s office will decide whether to intervene against the captain of the British ship following the police report.
The captain now also faces a fine of up to almost £12,500, as well as the seizure of his entire cargo, valued at around £29,000, authorities told local media.
This incident is just the latest episode in the decade-long “scallop war” involving British ships and French authorities.
Normandy fishermen, who depend on scallops for a staggering 50 percent of their income, accuse the British of devastating their scallop farms.
The French want their “Anglo-Saxon” counterparts to stay north of a line running from Barfleur to Cap d’Antifer, both in Normandy, and to use only small ships to avoid running out of supplies.
Normandy fisheries chief Dimitri Rogoff said in 2021: “The French hired the British to stop them from fishing and they turned on each other.”
Currently, French boats only have the right to fish for scallops from October 1 to May 15 to allow local populations to reproduce and regenerate.
In the most dramatic scallop clash, in 2018, a group of French ships allegedly attacked British ships in the Bay of Seine when rocks, smoke bombs and other objects were said to have been thrown at English and Scottish ships.