France sends patrol boats as fishing tensions flare with UK

Vessels from Britain’s Royal Navy and French police boats are patrolling near the English Channel island of Jersey as French fishermen angry about losing access to waters off their coast gather for a maritime protest

LONDON -- Vessels from Britain's Royal Navy and French police boats patrolled Thursday near the English Channel island of Jersey, where French fishermen angry about losing access to waters off their coast gathered for a maritime protest. The irate mariners set off flares and entered the island's main harbor, in the first major dispute between France and Britain over fishing rights in the wake of Brexit. The European Union appealed for calm, but also accused the U.K. of not respecting the terms of the post-Brexit trade deal agreed to by the two sides. The naval policing boats Athos and Themis were sent to keep watch on waters between France and Jersey, French maritime authorities for the English Channel and North Sea said. The deployment came after Britain on Wednesday directed two naval vessels, HMS Severn and HMS Tamar, to also patrol the waters around the island, a self-governing British Crown Dependency near the coast of northern France.