UK leader seeks to calm tensions in fishing spat with France

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to calm stormy waters over fishing with France on Friday as he flew to Rome for a G-20 summit, where he is due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron

LONDON -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to calm stormy waters over fishing with France on Friday as he flew to Rome for a G-20 summit, where he is due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron.

France has threatened to block British boats and tighten checks on U.K. vessels unless French vessels get more permits to fish in U.K. waters, stoking tensions following Britain's messy divorce from the European Union.

France also suggested it might restrict energy supplies to the Channel Islands, British Crown dependencies that lie off the coast of France and are heavily dependent on French electricity.

Since the U.K. left the economic orbit of the EU in January, relations between London and Paris have become increasingly frayed as the nations on either side of the English Channel sort out a post-Brexit path. But after days of increasingly tense rhetoric, Johnson seemed to signal calm.