PARIS (Bywire News) - On Thursday, France deployed two marine patrol boats to the island of Jersey, on the British Channel. The move comes after Britain dispatched two of its maritime boats, amid rising tensions over post-Brexit fishing laws.
Jersey recently introduced new fishing permits, which angered the French government. Paris claims that the new permits create unfair and baseless restrictions on the access French trawlers have to the fishing grounds in the Channel island.
A French minister warned that France would cut electric supply to Jersey if the restrictions were not retracted, this caused the British government to deploy its two marine vessels.
On Thursday, the French navy said that it was under the French civil authorities' orders that the two patrol boats were sent out. It did not provide information on what the vessels would be doing in the Jersey waters.
Marinetraffic.com, a ship-tracking site found Athos, one of the two vessels, just 20 km sout-east of Jersey, heading in the southwest direction.
On Thursday morning, a convoy of French trawler ships opposing the fishing tariffs had sailed over to the port of St Helier, located in Jersey.
Jersey officials, who believe the new restrictions on fishing coincide with the post-Brexit agreement, planned to meet with protestor representatives to discuss their worries.
(Reporting by Christian Lowe and Klaudia Fior; Editing by Mike Collett-White)