British crew: Not intimidated by French

 
Crew on board the Van Dijck, pictured from bottom left to right: Liem Roger, Connor Farr, Skipper Gary Smith, Simon Welch and Steve Joyce; top left: Michael Mcneil; and top right: First Mate Daniel Bassett (Photo/Agencies)

 
French fishermen have reportedly pelted British boats with rocks in a row over scallop fishing in the English Channel. (Photo/Agencies)

Proudly clutching the Union flag, the crew of the British scallop dredger Van Dijck stands firm in the face of the sabre-rattling French.

Militant French fishermen have threatened to mobilise a 250-strong armada against British boats fishing for scallops off the Normandy coast.

They have already attacked the Van Dijck and other British boats with rocks, iron bars and flares in what the crew have called ‘The French Revolution’.

But skipper Gary Smith, 47, says his crews refuse to be intimidated by their French foes.

Speaking from the wheel cabin of his 100ft boat he said: ‘These boys are hardened seafarers and there is nothing more they would like than a punch-up with the French.

‘But I told them we must not retaliate whatever they might throw at us. That’s just what the French want. They are trying to goad us into fighting back and making us like the bad guys in this. We are not.

‘We have been fishing for scallops here for years and there is plenty to go round for all of us, they just want it all for themselves.

‘We have painted a Union Jack on the side of the boat to show we will not be intimidated.’

Scallop War Roils English Channel

The Scallop War, or la guerre des coquilles as the French have named it, is the biggest thing to roil European waters since the bitter Third Cod War of 1975-76 that pitted Britain’s Royal Navy against Iceland’s coast guard.

The British are again involved, although the enemy this time is French fishermen, and the battleground is la Manche, or the “English” Channel, as the British insist on calling it.

The first blow was struck by the French on Monday, when their fishing boats surrounded British vessels and pelted them with catapults, stones and nuts and bolts.

The conflict degenerated into one-finger gestures from the French, to which the British are alleged to have responded by dropping their trousers and exposing their derrières to the attackers.

At stake are lucrative scallop stocks off the coast of Normandy that the French claim are being poached by their British competitors.

Angered by a cut in their scallop quotas, the French fishermen are demanding the closure of the disputed waters to keep out the marauding British.

Tough luck, say the British, who are not subject to the same restrictions as the French and who insist they are taking scallops in international waters beyond France’s 12-mile fishing zone.

The French are also frustrated that they are forced to stow their nets from May to October in order to replenish stocks, while for the British it is always open season for scalloping.

The British side is unrepentant. “The French are a bit peeved because we are near to their 12-mile limit,” a spokesman for the British fishermen told The Daily Mail. “But the French have been fishing on our 12-mile limit for donkeys’ years.”

By last Friday, militant French fishermen were threatening to mobilize a 250-vessel armada to block British ferries, and their British counterparts were calling for backup from the Royal Navy.