Brexit Britain is obsessed with us, says French minister

‘They made a mess of Brexit. It’s their choice and their failure, not ours. It was a bad choice, we see that today’

BREXIT Britain is “obsessed” with France and is using the row over fishing licences to distract from the “mess” created by leaving the EU, a close ally of Emmanuel Macron said.

Clément Beaune said the food and fuel supply shortages in the UK had contributed to its decision to withhold licences to fish in UK waters.

France’s Europe minister warned that Paris had “pressure points” to force the UK to grant more than the 12 out of 47 French applications for new licences. “Stop telling us you do not need us anymore, stop being obsessed with us, stop believing that we will solve your problems,” he said.

“They made a mess of Brexit. It’s their choice and their failure, not ours. It was a bad choice, we see that today,” he said.

“It is not by creating problems for our fishermen,” he added, “that you will solve the problems of shortages of Christmas turkey.”

The row over fishing rights has further strained Uk-french relations already damaged by the Aukus submarine dispute. Jean Castex, the French prime minister, has said all bilateral cooperation with the UK would be looked at if the stand-off persisted.

Florence Parly, the defence minister, said that cooperation on defence and a planned joint anti-ship and cruise missile programme were “in difficulty given the state of relations with the UK”.

“We are in the process of reflecting what is possible or not possible to do with the British,” she told the French parliamentary defence committee.

Marine Le Pen, Mr Macron’s rival in next year’s election, has told the French president to use cooperation on curbing cross-channel migration as leverage to secure more licences for French fishermen in the UK’S coastal waters.

Mr Beaune repeated his threat that EU action could lead to the UK losing access to the bloc’s energy market or British fish exports being hit with tariffs, despite Brussels resisting overtures to trigger arbitration procedures.

He said French fishermen had got 275 licences out of 450 from the Brexit deal but added that Paris would not cut off energy supplies to Jersey this winter.

“Britons need us to sell their products, including from fishing, they need us for their energy, for their financial services and for their research centres,” Mr Beaune said. “All of this gives us pressure points. [If Britons] they don’t do their share, then we won’t do 100 percent of our share either.”

A Government spokesman said it had “granted 98 per cent of licence applications from EU vessels to fish in our waters. Our approach has been fully in line with our commitments in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement”.