Trawlermen blockade Calais in protest over ‘pulse fishing’

FRENCH trawlermen protesting at losses caused by electric pulse fishing in the North Sea blockaded the port of Calais yesterday, halting traffic on one of Europe’s busiest shipping routes.

A dozen fishing trawlers cut off access to the quayside early yesterday morning in Calais, France’s biggest passenger port, before the blockade was lifted at about 4pm.

The fishermen said that they had been promised a meeting today with government officials to discuss their grievances.

The blockade caused delays for travellers and hauliers on the French side of the Channel as a number of ferry services were disrupted.

Pulse fishing involves fitting nets with electrodes and pulling them above the seabed. The electric current sends shocks through the sediment, forcing the fish up out of the sand into a trawler’s nets.

The method is widely used by Dutch vessels fishing for sole, raising the hackles of the French, who say it harms fish stocks, even though less than one per cent of European trawlers use it.

“The Dutch have wrecked the sea. There are no more fish,” said Christian Dubois, the Calais-based representative of a fishing industry body.

Both P&O Ferries and the Danish shipping company DFDS, which also runs ferries between France and Britain, said their vessels had been delayed by the protest.

The fishermen eventually allowed one ferry to be let through towards England every hour, a source in the port authority said.

P&O resorted to directing some customers towards the Channel Tunnel, while DFDS re-routed some of its ferry services through the French port of Dunkirk, which is about 20 miles north of Calais.