Tension in the Channel: French fishermen block the Eurotunnel for two hours

• Shipwreck in the Channel: among the dead a pregnant woman and 3 minors.

  Paris summons Europe

• French fishermen block freight traffic in ports and the Channel Tunnel

• Shipwreck of migrants in the English Channel, 27 dead

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November 26, 2021 French fishermen have cleared the entrance to the Channel Tunnel from the French side after blocking it for about two hours as part of the protest against London for fishing licenses.

This action caused a queue of over a hundred trucks. To "drain the traffic" and "decongest the public road", additional trains have been scheduled after 4 pm, a Eurotunnel spokesman said.

This morning, French fishing boats blocked English ferries from entering the port of Calais and also blocked access to English colleagues in Saint-Malo. The protest came after weeks of stalemate in negotiations between France and the United Kingdom and also in full confrontation between Paris and London on the issue of migrants.

The English Channel marks not only a geographical distance, only 34 kilometers at the narrowest point, but also a political, cultural and economic distance between France and the United Kingdom.

For almost fifty years, thanks to its stay in the European Union, the canal had been the peaceful and silent trait d'union between France and Great Britain, but today it makes its past felt, taking back its ancient role as a border between two worlds that, over the centuries, have looked at each other with distrust. It was enough for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union for that stretch of sea to return to that separation which, over the centuries, has fueled an ancestral competition between the continent and the islands, between France and the United Kingdom in particular. These two countries, bordering on the water and forced into a friendly coexistence from 1973 to 2016, today find themselves in the ancient role of antagonists while both being part of NATO.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since the Brexit referendum but, in the past two years, have deteriorated further. The conflict was fueled by the disputes over the agreement signed to leave the European Union and the consequent disputes over the waters of the Channel, the scenario of the so-called "fish war".

Tensions culminated in the seizure of a British fishing boat by the French and the deployment of military vessels on the maritime border by the British. In recent days we have reached a new breaking point that sees the English Channel at the center of the dispute. The straw that broke the camel's back was the tragic story of the 27 deaths of Somali and Iraqi origin as they tried to cross the canal and reach the British coast on a makeshift boat.

The French and British ministers of the interior should have met on Sunday 28 November, during a European meeting organized precisely to talk about the emergency of the so-called journeys of hope from the French beaches to the British coasts: but the meeting will not take place. The bone of contention in this case is a letter that Boris Johnson wrote to Emmanuel Macron, made public by the British Prime Minister himself on Twitter. In the letter Johnson asked France to monitor its coasts more closely, implicitly blaming it for the incident, adding a five-point proposal to achieve the goal. The cancellation of the meeting between ministers was the response from Paris.

This morning, during the press conference held in Rome on the occasion of the signing of the Quirinal Treaty between France and Italy, Macron harshly criticized the British Prime Minister: "I am surprised when things are not done seriously. Leaders do not communicate between each other. them, on certain issues, via Twitter or by writing public letters. We are not whistleblowers. "