Charles Guyard // Photo credit: PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP 11:25 am, September 23, 2023

The account is not there for fishermen after the presentation this Friday of the energy transition plan to adapt ships too greedy in fuel. The government's announcements are not up to par, according to them. With the end of the boost on fuel prices, an entire sector is at risk of dying.

Can the energy transition cause the death of the French fishing industry? This is what professionals in the sector fear after the presentation this Friday of the energy transition plan by the Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville. Announcements that are not up to the representatives of the sector present and who have decided to leave the room. For fishermen, who were waiting for a quick response to the "cataclysm" experienced by the sector because of the cost of fuel, it is "disappointment" and fear that obscures the future of the sector.

"We are going straight into the wall"

"I can't imagine La Turballe without fishermen", yet this is what could happen, especially after the announcement of the end of the boost on diesel. In this small town in Loire-Atlantique, one in five inhabitants lives from the sea, a city that will have to transform its economy to survive without any guarantee of success: "In Piriac-sur-Mer, there have been up to a hundred boats, today it is a tourist town, but tourism does not give food" confides the deputy for maritime affairs, Didier Marion.

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Everything must be done so that fishermen "can make a living from their profession and I feel that we are going straight into the wall, the shock may be particularly violent", when we know that a fisherman can make up to four people work on land. The entire sector is threatened today: "The first to be impacted will be the mechanics, then the equipment suppliers. I think the guys will stay ashore and we will have bankruptcy filings," said Jean-Jacques Muriel, head of the Maritime Cooperative.