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HANNAH GODFREY IN PARIS
The SCOTSMAN 4th January 2003
WHILE fishermen in Fraserburgh are wondering how they will be feeding their families in the new year, their colleagues in Boulogne-sur-Mer are breathing a sigh of relief.
Following pressure from the French government, the eastern Channel area has been excluded from the new restrictions on cod fishing.
But although the town’s population has welcomed this exemption, the long-term future of this thriving fishing port has not been assured by the announcement.
Roger Lefebvre has been fishing in the English Channel and the North Sea for 30 years. His gill-net boat, the Gimyca, has a crew of four and brings in sole, whiting, cod and turbot, as well as the odd lobster.
He openly admits catches are not what they once were: "Just three years ago, we used to bring up good cod weighing 3kg, now we only get ‘codettes’ that don’t even weigh a kilo. I cannot believe that this compromise is in any of our best interests."
Mr Lefebvre is not alone in his views. Christophe Lhomel, the owner of the Laisse Dire, said: "I know very well that if I over-fish, my sons will have nothing left to take."
But what constitutes over-fishing can seem subjective.
According to Mr Lefebvre, most European fishermen and their supporters challenge scientific evidence of a dramatic fall in fish populations, because "everyone has to look out for their own backs; they know that stocks are falling, but they can’t afford to say it".
The French president, Jacques Chirac, backing the nation’s fishermen, has called into question the validity of the multiple scientific studies that have shown alarming drops in the populations of a number of fish species.
Despite appearing as the champion of sustainable development at the Johannesburg summit, the president seems more anxious about avoiding the wrath of the powerful French fishing lobby than ensuring the long-term survival of the industry.
When French fishermen have something to protest about, they have a formidable clout - even by French standards. Protests by Breton fishermen in 1994 - over another run-in with Brussels - left 61 people in hospital and the 17th century Breton parliament building in ashes.
Boulogne-sur-Mer is by far France’s largest fishing port. The 1,000 fishermen bring in 55,000 tons of fish a year, but the local processing infrastructure is also used by industries based elsewhere. About 300,000 tons of fish are processed and marketed in Boulogne annually.
According to Francis Leroy, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, the local fishing industry employs 7,000 people, including fishermen, fish traders, processors and haulage contractors. Over the past ten years, 150 million - 70 per cent from the private sector and 30 per cent from public funds - have been invested into modernising the port’s facilities.
The main worry for Bernard Wyts, the director of fisheries at the Chamber of Commerce, has been finding new space in an already saturated industrial zone.
A retired fisherman takes a rather different point of view from the majority of his townsfolk about whether big catches are Boulogne’s lifeblood: "Everyone says the town would die if we were no longer allowed to fish as much as we have done in the past, but they forget one detail. Boulogne could survive without catching 60,000 tons of fish a year by concentrating, instead, on processing the 250,000 tons of fish that are brought here from other European countries."
Although even more unpopular than quotas, forcing fishermen to limit the number of days spent at sea may be the only way effective way of ensuring stock replenishment. Marcel Leprêtre, one of the captains of the trawler Kerbulic, explains that squid, cod and whiting are all fished using the same net. "We can’t just throw the cod back - it is already dead."
Mr Lefebvre says it is not just cod stocks that are diminishing, but those of all species.
He blames over-fishing partly on improvements in technology, which have increased his catches by 30 per cent, but Hervé Gaymard, the French minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, has argued successfully against a reduction in fishing, saying, in the Libération newspaper: "I refuse that, on the pretext of wanting to safeguard one particular species, we force fishermen to stay in port and thus effectively forbid them from fishing any species."
Along with other so-called "friends of fishermen", he has also managed to secure subsidies for boat modernisation until the end of 2004.
Mr Lefebvre said: "There are simply too many fishing boats in Europe. If the fish are to come back the fleet has got to be reduced." If he is correct, continuing subsidies could in itself be the death knell for European fish stocks.
Loïc Jagot, the president of the French Federation of Producers’ Organisations, is relieved that, "on the most important points, we have won". He added: "Thank goodness that we haven’t suffered the same fate as the [British fleet], they’re only allowed to go fishing nine days a month."
But Mr Lefebvre, while believing British fishermen have not been well served by their government, holds that the European Commission ought to have put all the member countries on an equal footing, and not given into pressure from individual governments.
He doesn’t see why fishermen in the north should suffer while those in the south are let off the hook.
In Boulogne-sur-Mer, it is rare to hear a voice raised against the region’s rather arbitrary exemption from the crushing new restrictions on cod fishing.
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