After le showdown, now it’s... LE SURRENDER

Macron drops his trade war threats after Britain stands firm in row over fishing

EMMANUEL Macron last night climbed down from his incendiary threats to spark a cross-Channel trade war over fishing rights.

As a midnight deadline the French president had himself imposed ticked near, Mr Macron said he would return to the negotiating table with Britain today.

That saw the end – for 24 hours at least – of threats to block British trawlers from landing their catches in French ports, reduce electricity to Jersey and tighten customs checks, potentially strangling trade.

After the UK refused to budge, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss adamant Britain would ‘not roll over’, Mr Macron told reporters at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow: ‘It is not while we are negotiating that we are going to impose sanctions.

‘Since this afternoon, discussions have resumed on the basis of a proposal I made to Prime Minister (Boris) Johnson.

‘The talks need to continue. We’ll see where we are tomorrow at the end of the day, to see if things have really

‘We are simply not going to roll over’

changed. The next few hours are important hours.’ He added: ‘I understood that the British were going to come back to us tomorrow with other proposals.’

France is furious at the UK and Jersey’s decision to turn down applications from a number of French vessels to fish in their waters.

The Elysee Palace had originally stood firm, saying that if Britain refused to give ground on the number of licences it issued to French fishermen, it would implement its threats to British trawlers, to Jersey and on customs checks. Truss said, should France act, the UK would take legal action under the UK-EU Brexit trade deal, while Downing Street said it had ‘robust’ contingency plans in place.

At the Cop26 summit yesterday, Mr Johnson and Mr Macron shared a frosty greeting on stage in front of other world leaders. The day before, at a G20 meeting in Rome, Mr Johnson had told the French leader it was up to Paris to step back from the brink.

Despite a seeming lull in hoserwise tilities, a French fishing chief last night warned trawlermen to stay away from British waters in case the row blows up again.

Olivier Lepretre, chairman of the powerful northern French fisheries committee, said: ‘I fear there might be some tit-for-tat measures. We need an agreement that works for both French and British fishermen.’

Britain says it has granted licences to 98 per cent of EU vessels which have asked to operate in British waters. But the dispute centres on access for boats of under 12-metres wishing to fish in the UK’s sixto-12-nautical-mile zone.

Paris was angry that the UK originally granted only 12 licences out of 47 bids for smaller vessels, a figure which has now risen.

Earlier yesterday Miss Truss told the BBC: ‘We allocated the fishing licences completely in line with what is in the trade agreement and the French need to withdraw those threats. OthMiss we will use the dispute resolution mechanism in the EU deal to take action. We are simply not going to roll over in the face of these threats.’

A senior UK Government source said last night: ‘We’re glad that France has stepped back. We’ve stuck to our position and were ready to respond. Our position on fishing licenses remains unchanged. We are in solutions mode and we want to resolve these issues consensually if we can.’