BRITISH, FRENCH FLEETS CLASH IN SCALLOP-RICH WATERS.

PARIS • It won’t be remembered as one of the great naval encounters between France and England but, unlike at the Battle of Trafalgar, this time French mariners felt they won.

Fishermen from rival French and British fleets banged their boats into each other in ill-tempered skirmishes this week over access to the scallop-rich waters off France’s northern coast.

French maritime official Ingrid Parrot described the muscular confrontation between 35 French boats and five British ones in international waters on Tuesday morning as “very dangerous,” although there were no injuries.

“It was very, very tense,” she said. “We really hope things will calm down.”

Every year sees problems between French and British fishermen over access to lucrative scallops, she said. But it’s usually without the violence that was captured by a French TV crew. Their video showed boats banging hulls and at least one firework rocket being launched.

A British trade group, the South Western Fish Producers Organization, accused French fishermen of putting lives at risk.

“The French might look like heroes to the French coastal communities but it’s really awful to put other mariners in danger,” said its chief executive, Jim Portus.

He said a window was smashed on one British boat and that another suffered fire damage from a flare.

One of the fishermen caught in the clashes told The Daily Telegraph that they were subject to a “wellorganized attack” and accused the French navy of failing to intervene.

Ciaran Cardell said: “We were about to haul up at 2 a.m. and switched the lights on and we were surrounded by 15 boats. It was like something out of Vietnam (war).

“They were firing rocket flares and throwing shackles, rocks and petrol bombs. If you got hit by one of those rocket flares, it would take your head off.

“They also tried to catch the propeller (with rope) to stop the boat. If we had stopped dead, then we would have had to be towed to their port and God knows what would have happened.”

French law prevents French boats from fishing for scallops during the summer before Oct. 1, to help preserve the stocks, Parrot said. But British boats can still fish for the prized delicacies in international waters off the French coast. That makes French crews “feel that the resources are being pillaged, when they are preserving them,” Parrot said.

In previous years, the two sides struck deals to limit the scope of British scallop fishing off French waters but haven’t managed to do so this year, she said. More talks are expected in mid-September.

“If we let them do what they want, they’ll ravage the area,” said Anthony Quesnel, captain of La Rose des Vents, one of the French boats that took part in the effort to shoo away the British vessels on Tuesday.

The video showed smaller French craft huddled around bigger British vessels and several collisions before the British eventually retreated.

“In the end, it’s worth it, because they left,” Quesnel said. “We won a battle but we haven’t won the war.”

An EU spokesman, Daniel Rosario, called for a negotiated solution.

Dominique Patrix, of the Normandy Fishing Committee, told The Telegraph that French fishermen are terrified of being banned from British waters after Brexit. He said that British fishermen no longer “give a damn” about trawling where they like in the Channel because they know they are “in a position of strength.”

IF YOU GOT HIT BY ONE OF THOSE ROCKET FLARES, IT WOULD TAKE YOUR HEAD OFF. — CIARAN CARDELL