The French Navy announced today, Thursday, that it has sent two boats to the waters around Jersey Island, which belongs to the British Crown in the English Channel, in response to a similar British action.

 

The French Navy sent two boats to the waters surrounding the island of Jersey, belonging to the British Crown, in the English Channel, and this came to respond to the similar British action.  A spokesman for the French Coast Guard in the Canal and the North Sea told Agence France-Presse: "With about 50 (French) fishing boats in the area, then it is clear that we wanted to pre-position these two boats," indicating that one of the boats is a gendarmerie police boat and the other is a boat.  Guards nautical.

Crews of French fishing vessels, angered by post-Brexit restrictions imposed on their access to British fishing grounds, had earlier sailed in a sea convoy to Jersey to register their protest.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered two Royal Navy escort vessels to monitor a protest in the waters around Jersey Harbor by French fishermen.  "Any blockade will be totally unjustified," he said, with more than 100 French fishing boats ready to sail to the island.

HMS Tamaro and HMS Severn were deployed on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.  Both are armed with a cannon designed to protect against fast-moving attack aircraft and two machine guns on deck.  This comes after a threat from France to cut off electricity to Jersey due to the new rules for French fishing boats in the post-Brexit period.

The new fishing rules now stipulate that French boats have a history of fishing in Jersey waters.  However, the French authorities said that the "new technical measures" for fishing off the Channel Islands had not been notified to the European Union, making them "null and void".  Dmitry Rogoff, president of the French Fishermen's Association, had previously made it clear that 100 French fishing boats would sail to the port of Jersey on Thursday as part of a protest against the new rules, stressing that they would return safely from the port.