Emmanuel Macron sends French gunboat to Jersey as tensions rise in fishing protest Nicholas Cecil UP NEXT
Tensions escalated dramatically on Thursday after a French gunboat headed towards Jersey as Royal Navy ships tracked a flotilla of Normandy fishing boats protesting against post-Brexit licence rules.
Around 70 fishing boats were massing off-shore, with some firing flares amid talk over maritime radio early this morning of a blockade of the island’s main port of Saint Helier.
Two Royal Navy ships, HMS Tamar, which is equipped with machineguns and a helicopter landing pad, and HMS Severn, were tracking the demonstration from a distance. The stand-off escalated mid-morning after it emerged that the French maritime gendarmerie vessel Athos, armed with a cannon, would be arriving in the area “imminently” on a “patrol mission”.