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The attack has led to demands that the UK take back full control of its waters and ditch Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit, which would include a continuation of sharing fishing grounds
with the EU. The attack, which breaks both EU and international law, took place on the French side of the Channel, but in a part that will remain open international waters even after
Brexit. It did not take place in the 12-mile national exclusion zone on the French side or the sixmile zone on the British side. The French fishing boats had sailed up from Normandy to
attack the British fishermen, who had been fishing for scallops. A picture of British boat the Honeybourne showed it had been set ablaze. It later emerged that flares had been thrown. “The
French went to make contact with the British to prevent them from working,” Dimitri Rogoff, president of the Normandy fisheries committee told French media. “Stones were thrown but there
were no injuries or damage. The French surrounded the British before they left the area.” The attack has been condemned by politicians and British fishing groups. The pro-Brexit Fishing for
Leave campaign group said it was “a declaration of war” by French fishermen and vowed to heap pressure on the Government to provide fishing patrol vessels in the UK. Spokesman Alan Hastings
said: “French fishermen resorting to intimidation and violence is hypocrisy in the extreme. "For 40 years we have had to endure French and other EU fishermen catching 60 per cent of the
fish in British waters, much taken just off the coasts of Cornwall.” South East Cornwall MP Sheryll Murray said: “This is disgraceful treatment of British vessels which were doing nothing
but trying to earn a living.” Former environment secretary Owen Paterson said that the attack had shown why Mrs May’s flawed Chequers plan cannot work and the UK needs full independence from
the EU. He said: “This is rank hypocrisy by the French, who have broken the rules on many occasions by fishing within the British six-mile exclusion zone and have forced British fishermen
into international waters by plundering our stocks.” in a comment aimed at Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who signed up to Chequers, he tweeted: “Following reports of shocking violence
in EU Common Resource waters in Channel, remember UK boats wouldn’t have to go outside our waters if they had fair share of our own resources.”