The power of British fishing to publicly humiliate a French President
Montage © UKfish.Org 2025
The worst 24 hours of Macron’s Presidency – And a victory for British fishing
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This was the most unconditional surrender and public humiliation in modern French history
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Yet on Monday it’s Sir Keir Starmer who plans to surrender – and all without a shot being fired
With just four days before the start of Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘Great EU Reset Summit’, the UK Fisheries Campaign and GB News, in association with Facts4EU and CIBUK, continues its short series revealing just how close the UK came to a dramatic and total breakdown of normal and peaceful co-existence with its nearest neighbour, France, over a highly-charged five-day period in late 2021.
As bizarre as it may seem, the extreme set of events put in motion by the French against the British people was over a handful of fishing licences.
The facts of France’s last-minute retreat from implementing its threats to the United Kingdom were clear
On Wednesday the previous week (27 Oct 2021) the French government had issued a bizarre ultimatum to the UK government via Twitter. It stated that from midnight on 01 November 2021 France would start blocking British fishing vessels from French ports, and would implement even more bureaucratic procedures on lorries entering French ports, which would have brought cross channel trade almost to a halt. It also threatened to cut off power supplies to the Channel Islands and the UK mainland.
With only 24 hours to go, President Macron was still sounding bullish and confident of victory. His draconian measures were due to be implemented from midnight the next day. On a visit to Rome that Sunday (31 Oct 2021) he declared that:
“The ball is now in their court. If the British don’t make any significant move, the measures starting from 02 November will need to be implemented.”
“I would deplore it. But what we cannot do is not respond and not defend our fishermen.”
– President Macron, Rome, 31 Oct 2021
President Macron’s surrender and humiliating ‘volte-face’
On the night the ultimatum was due to start being implemented, and with silence from the British side, President Macron was finally forced into a full and unconditional surrender. Faced with no “significant move” from the UK government’s well-established position of following the rules set out in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, together with some very generous interpretations of these from the UK side, Lord Frost and Boris Johnson left him nowhere to go.
In Glasgow at the COP26 Summit on the evening of 01 November 2021, the French President told the media: “The discussion will continue tomorrow with the British. Discussions between ministers have resumed.”
He was forced to confirm that the United Kingdom government had not moved, saying: “France is awaiting a counterproposal on Tuesday afternoon from the British Government so that a favourable outcome can be found to this crisis.”
With that, Macron left the damage-limitation exercise to his government ministers, and in particular his Secretary of State for European Affairs.
Macron’s protégé tried to put a brave face on the French climbdown
Clement Beaune, France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, attempted to put on a brave face. At 10.30pm that Monday evening (01 Nov 2021) he once again bizarrely communicated to Lord Frost via Twitter, saying:-
“Discussions on the granting of fishing licenses continued today between the European Commission, France and the United Kingdom. We have received the first signals from the British authorities to speed up the exchanges; a response to the latest proposals from the French authorities is expected by Wednesday.
“I also spoke with David Frost, UK Minister for EU Relations. I invited Lord Frost to Paris on Thursday for an in-depth discussion of the difficulties in implementing the agreements binding the European Union and the United Kingdom.
“In order to allow the dialogue thus opened to continue, the measures announced and prepared by France will not be applied before this meeting and the examination of the new British responses relating to fishing licences.”
French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clement Beaune
Lord Frost responded immediately
Lord Frost gave a short, two-line answer to Clement Beaune.
“We have set out our response to the statement from Clement Beaune this evening. I look forward to our talks in Paris on Thursday.”
Below is the UK government’s statement on fisheries, 01 Nov 2021, referred to by Lord Frost
“We welcome the French Government’s announcement that they will not go ahead with implementing their proposed measures as planned tomorrow. The UK has set out its position clearly on these measures in recent days.
“As we have said consistently, we are ready to continue intensive discussions on fisheries, including considering any new evidence to support the remaining licence applications.
“We welcome France’s acknowledgement that in-depth discussions are needed to resolve the range of difficulties in the UK/EU relationship. Lord Frost has accepted Clement Beaune’s invitation and looks forward to the discussions in Paris on Thursday.”
In other words, the UK government had not moved. Instead Lord Frost had merely agreed to yet another meeting, which was to take place three days after the French ultimatum for action was withdrawn.
British fishing had inflicted the worst humiliation and defeat on Macron in his entire career up to that point.
Comments on this report, by former Secretary of State the Rt Hon Sir John Redwood
The best thing President Macron did during the intense 2021 dispute over fishing rights was to back down. His conduct had been so unreasonable.
The UK Fisheries Campaign and Facts4EU are right to point out that France was trying to act alone when the EU controlled the policy and the Agreement. France was also breaking the main EU Treaty requiring good neighbourliness with nearby non EU countries.
The fact that Mr Macron had to retreat should strengthen government resolve this time to stand up to over-the-top French claims to take far too much fish from our fishing grounds.The French have no legal or moral right to insist on a large share of the catch in our waters. They would certainly not offer us similar access to their natural resources.– The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood, 10 May 2025
Lord Frost’s final ‘coup de grâce’ – Proof the French lied
Montage © Facts4EU.Org
In the weeks leading up to the tumultuous ‘five days when fishing took Brexit to the brink’, the French had been making all kinds of claims against the British – all of them false. Regrettably the French government did this so emphatically that the UK’s own Remainer-Rejoiners believed them, as did many people across the EU, we are sure.
Examples of what President Macron’s French government had been claiming
Summary
The erroneous claims by the French government of President Macron
- ‘We lack more than 40% of French licence applications’
- ‘10% of EU licence applications have not been granted’
- ‘All the missing ones are French’
Source: The above claims were all made publicly by Clément Beaune, President Macron’s protégé and his Minister for European Affairs, on Twitter on Sunday 31 Oct – around 36 hours before the French unilateral ultimatum to the UK was due to expire.
Ahead of a crunch meeting with French ministers on Thursday 04 Nov 2021, at 9.00pm the previous evening Lord Frost announced the release of all Government data on EU fishing vessel licence applications. This information showed clearly that claims by French government ministers were wildly inaccurate.
“As there are some partial figures around, and for full transparency, we have today set out in Parliament the full & authoritative data on the state of play on fishing licences granted by the UK, Jersey, and Guernsey this year.”
– Lord Frost, 03 Nov 2021
Reality: The French claims were so off beam as to be all at sea
The data released by the UK government showed the numbers of applications received for EU fishing vessel licences, broken down by category and by EU country. After analysing the figures we can bring readers a simple comparison of the French government’s claims and the sober reality.
SUMMARY – The French fishing claims vs. the reality
French claim: The UK failed to grant over 40% of French licence applications – FALSE
- French claim: “Over 40%”
- The reality: 3.9%
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org – click to enlarge
French claim: Only around 90% of expected EU licences were granted – FALSE
- French claim: ‘Around 10% of expected EU licences have not been granted’
- The reality: 2.1%
French claim: “All the missing licences were French” – FALSE
- French claim: 100%
- The reality: 89.5%
Final tally: Over 2,000 licences issued to EU by UK, Jersey, and Guernsey
As of Macron’s original ultimatum deadline (02 Nov 2021), the UK had issued licences for 1,679 EU fishing vessels – 738 to the French alone. The Jersey government had issued 162 – all to the French.
Never mentioned is Jersey’s neighbour Guernsey, also a Crown Dependency, reporting separately. Guernsey had issued 167 temporary licences to EU fishing vessels. This took the number of licences currently issued by the UK, Jersey, and Guernsey to the EU Commission to a grand total of 2,008. [Source: MMO, 02 Nov 2021]
Observations
Victory in Europe
In the long tradition of French Generals, President Macron ordered his troops to retreat from the fight. Monsieur Macron’s humiliating climbdown and withdrawal of the threat of action against British fishermen, truckers, and the British public as as whole by virtue of the threat to cut off electricity supplies from France, did not happen at the proverbial ‘five-to-midnight’ – but it wasn’t far off.
Ever courteous and magnanimous, the UK’s Lord Frost accepted the invitation from President Macron’s protégé and ‘Secretary of State for European Affairs’, Clément Beaune, to hold further talks in Paris on Thursday – three days after the French ultimatum and deadline was supposed to have come into effect.
Some readers might feel that it would have been more appropriate for Lord Frost to have insisted that the diminutive Frenchman had to come to London, if he had something to say. This, however, might not have been the most appropriate diplomatic course of action. Perhaps Lord Frost felt that the French had suffered enough humiliation for one week.
Some words of optimism – a new side to Lord Frost?
Seemingly unnoticed by most of the media, Lord Frost had a new strap-line beneath his Twitter profile. It said: “You don’t get something for nothing, you can’t have freedom for free.”
Credit: Lord Frost, Twitter, 2021
[ Sources: No.10 press office | President Macron press conference at COP26 | Clement Beaune Twitter account | Lord Frost Twitter account | EU Commission ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
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