Many French fishing ports are unlikely to be affected by Brexit, but Boulogne sur Mer and Dieppe, with only a short strip of water separating them from England, are not among them.They will undoubtedly be the hardest hit. Within a couple of hours of the main wholesale fish market in Paris and catching most of their fish in UK territorial waters, their fishermen are understandably more concerned than most about the looming deadline of January 1st 2021, when a new deal, or a no deal, with the UK will come into force.
Dieppe, where I spent a few days this summer, has definitely seen better days. It is neither the richest nor the most beautiful fishing port in France. Many of its historic buildings were destroyed during the war and rebuilt on a shoestring and according to the aesthetic canons of the 1950s and 60s. Militant dockers and competition from Le Havre, just down the coast, have put paid to its erstwhile lucrative trade in bananas from the French overseas territories. The first building you see walking out of the railway station is a down-at-heel 1960s steel and glass building emblazoned with the name “espace de solidarites” – a brave attempt to bring together in one place all the social services that inhabitants are likely to need. And there are clearly many who do. The sea front is a disappointingly unattractive collection of hotels and residential buildings, ranging from run-down Art Deco to Soviet style concrete blocks that would not look out of place in the drearier suburbs of Prague or Warsaw. The narrow streets just behind them are home to seedy boarding houses for penny-pinching visitors. Being the nearest seaside town to Paris, and the cheapest, it was hardly surprising perhaps that there was a sprinkling of large families of North African origin on the beach, most of the women wearing headscarfs, probably on a short trip from the poorer Northern suburbs of Paris. Just up the road opposite the wharfs where the fishing boats are tied up is the HQ of the constituency MP and former mayor, Sebastien Jumel, one of the 11 members of the dwindling communist group in the AssemblĂ©e Nationale. The communist vote has tended to survive in France only in areas of declining industries like mining or fishing and strong working-class traditions. Three of the communist MPs were elected on this stretch of the Normandy coast.
To find out how the fishing community was faring just a few months before Brexit actually bites, what better place than the fishermen’s market on the other side of the port? Two stalls were occupied out of a possible total of six and the one I chose had a meagre selection of fish. It was attended by a fisherman and his wife and what I took to be their daughter. The fisherman and his wife were probably not far from retirement and looked drawn and dejected. I bought a couple of fish and turned to the daughter to ask how they felt about the impact of Brexit. She was a tall and broad-shouldered young woman with fair skin and blue eyes, hair tied in knot behind her head, perhaps a far reminiscence of the Normans’ Viking heritage. Unsurprisingly, she had little time for “English” fishermen: they had larger boats, bigger quotas and used aggressive fishing techniques. “We respect our blackout periods and quotas”, she said, heavily implying that the English didn’t, “but if you find scallops in the local supermarkets all the year round”, she went on, “they all come from English boats and are deep frozen”. What did they intend to do if there was no deal on fishing, I asked? “Fight them!” she answered without a moment’s hesitation, “encircle their boats and stop them fishing”. I could imagine her as a passionara in a male dominated world, wielding a battle axe and spurring her troops into battle, in the tradition of the valiant “corsaires” (privateers) and sea captains who sailed from Dieppe in the 17th and 18th centuries to capture and plunder foreign ships or wage war on the English, Dutch and Spanish. A statue of one of the most famous, Abraham Duquesne, stands in a small square behind the sea front that is now a car park.
For the moment, the headlines in the Brexit negotiations are focused more on a “level playing field” in state aid to industry than fishing rights, but the issue will undoubtedly return before the negotiations are over, unless of course they break up acrimoniously and a “no deal” is the result. Both sides are being lobbied by their respective fishermen. The industry accounts for little more than 1% of their respective GDPs, although the impact on coastal communities, on both sides, will be greater than this figure suggests. The situation is further complicated by the fact that French, Belgian, Dutch and German vessels take about 70% of their catch in British waters, while British vessels sell about 70% of theirs in continental Europe. In addition, many French trawlers that fish in the North Sea land their catch in Scotland and have it transported by lorry to France through the Chanel tunnel, where it reaches its ultimate markets, tariff and quota free, more quickly than if it were transported by sea. All in all, a complex system that can only be heavily disrupted by Brexit, like so many others where it is proving necessary, by negotiation or fait accompli, to unpick the threads of a 45-year old trading relationship.
It is also worth remembering that in France at least, many fishing ports will not be affected at all. In Southern Brittany and on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, a lot of the fishing is local and most vessels that venture further remain in EU or international waters. The fishermen who sell their catch in our local market twice a week in the Golfe du Morbihan assured me that all their fish comes from French waters that yield a wide range of fish, from the cheaper mackerel, sardines and plaice to the nobler and more expensive species of sole, turbot and sea bass, all of which are snapped up at reasonable prices by local inhabitants and summer visitors. For these fishermen, Brexit is a non-event.
But Dieppe is another story altogether. Years of decline and the suspicion that their own authorities are unlikely to go to the barricades to defend their trade give their fisherfolk little hope that they will be offered much more than lump sum payments to scrap most of their boats and take early retirement. After all, this is the procedure that has been followed by all French governments over the years, putting many small coastal fishermen out of business and focusing on the larger and more efficient trawlers that can sail further afield and bring in larger catches. If the Brexit negotiations on fisheries go anywhere, this pattern is likely to be repeated yet again.
Little wonder that the older generation of Dieppe fishermen feels dejected – and that the younger generation is spoiling for a fight!
