"I have never seen such a flood of attacks (...). Food sovereignty, everyone talks about it, but when it comes to making it a reality, there is no one left," wrote the president of the committee Olivier Le Nézet to Emmanuel Macron, in a letter that AFP was able to consult Wednesday.
He evokes "aggressions" that have become "intolerable" because they "call into question the foundation of our profession, feeding the French and Europeans".
In the background, a sector severely affected by the Covid health crisis and then by Brexit, which led to the scrapping of 90 vessels, and more recently by the European Commission's "action plan" to eliminate bottom fishing (trawls, dredges, etc.) in marine protected areas by 2030.
On Monday, a decision of the Council of State has ignited the powder: the highest French administrative court, seized by environmental associations, gave the government six months to close some fishing areas in the Atlantic to preserve dolphins whose strandings have multiplied in the Bay of Biscay.
"For five years, our fishermen have been at the initiative of scientific and technical programs to determine avoidance solutions (sonars, observations, special nets to keep cetaceans away, editor's note), to reconcile fishing activities and the protection of dolphins (...). The Council of State has just called everything into question," says Olivier Le Nezet, adding that the national committee was studying "the possibility of an appeal".
On Wednesday, several hundred fishermen demonstrated in Rennes in a tense atmosphere to protest against "the regulations", evoking pell-mell the decision of the Council of State, the price of maritime diesel and the "lack of listening of the State".
Clashes during a fishermen's demonstration in Rennes on March 22, 2023 © DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
Questioned by AFP, Mr. Le Nezet "obviously condemned" the violent excesses - a tractor was thrown in the direction of the police - while stressing the "distress of an entire profession".
"It seems that the state no longer sees a future for our sector," he summed up in his letter to the president, asking for "a pause in this avalanche of bad moves".
© 2023 AFP