Frustration also affects fishermen. The climate is more tense than at any time since the Brexit crisis. They then demand that the government respond to a series of "attacks" weakening the sector. The national fisheries committee is calling for two dead days in French ports on Thursday and Friday. "The cup is full and we must give a future to all the actors of our sector because today the horizon is bleak," said the national committee of marine fisheries and marine farms (CNPMEM), in a statement published Tuesday.

For several days, anger has been rising among fishermen: strong demonstrations in Rennes or Lorient, blockade of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, the main French port. Professionals denounce "inadequate European regulations", including the recent ban on bottom fishing in marine protected areas by 2030, the price of diesel, the closure of certain fishing areas in the Atlantic to preserve dolphins whose strandings have multiplied in the Bay of Biscay and, ultimately, the "disengagement" of the State.

'Relentless harassment'

"The accumulation of standards, threats, litigation calls into question the very foundation of our profession by making us feel guilty for exercising our professions: the only objective is to feed the French and Europeans," says the committee. After the health crisis and Brexit, which led to the scrapping of 90 ships, professionals consider the very existence of the sector "compromised by incessant harassment and piecemeal support without support towards a vision of the future".

They expressed this anger to President Emmanuel Macron, in an open letter sent last week, calling for "a pause in this avalanche of bad moves", and have since demanded to be received by the head of state. Pending a response, "the CNPMEM calls on all professional representatives to suspend their participation in environmental management bodies". The committee specifies that the "dead port" days organized on Thursday and Friday are the result of a "unitary action", coordinated between fishermen, auctions and fish merchants: "It is not a question of weakening ourselves. Others think for us."

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