France’s fishy record

SIR – The French were not always as fastidious about conserving fish stocks as they now seem to be about scallops.

Not long after the then EEC agreed a Common Fisheries Policy, collapsing stocks of herring in the North Sea prompted ministers from all member countries to introduce a total ban on herring fishing there.

Some weeks later, as The Daily Telegraph’s specialist reporter on EEC agriculture and fisheries, I had a tip-off from a source in the British fishing industry that if I made a very early visit to the fish market in Boulogne, I would see herring from the North Sea on open sale there.

I caught an evening ferry to Boulogne with the photographer Tony Marshall, and we were at the fish market very early next morning. Sure enough, there were plenty of herring on sale. They even had the label “herring” in French chalked above the stalls. When some of the market officials became aware of our interest, they tried to convince us that the fish were pilchards, not herring.

The story made the front page the next day. It aroused a flurry of interest in Brussels – but, as so often when France flouts the rules, little if any action was taken. C’est la vie. Godfrey Brown

Saffron Walden, Essex

SIR – Who will compensate the British scallop fishermen (report, September 6) who agreed not to enter French waters? Not the taxpayer, I trust. Bill Stafford

Trudoxhill, Somerset