‘Taken for delinquents’: The French fishers refusing to hand in WWII shells • FRANCE 24

Nearly 30,000 tons of munitions were dropped in and around Brest harbour in western France during World War II, and the risk of dredging unexploded ammunition is constant for the fishing boats that operate in the surrounding waters. The fishers are supposed to collect and report any shells they find but, for the past two years, most have been throwing them straight back in the water – the result of a bitter dispute with the authorities.
#France #fishing #bombs

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35 comments

  1. There has to be more to this story. They are not making enough money to turn away 300 Euros. The story here doesn't even let any fisherman explain their reason. Perhaps the police make them keep the boat in the harbour and they lose out or something, perhaps something else, this reporting is inadequate.

  4. Perhaps the government should give all of the fishing boats small inflatables with beacons on them to inflate and put the shells into and then let them drift to be retrieved later.

  5. Fishing vessels in other parts of the world have cameras on the vessels. Have the cameras focused on the retrieval area. Connect the cameras with Starlink or Wimax(if still in line of sight with the shore) etc. A.I and random monitoring of camera feed. If a vessel goes boom there will be a video record of the incident.

  9. Many angles to consider, but most are dumb. Authorities should have realised fishermen are stubburn at best, and should have made it as simple as drop them off in a moored barge or similar, fishers prosecuted were punished for be dumb and collecting many shells, which could have endangered many, as for throwing them back, thats dancing with darwin im afraid.

  12. A captain's first responsibility is to the safety of the vessel and crew. Why would anyone keep live ordinance onboard? I'd guess the insurance companies wouldn't cover it also.

  17. Ok i get everyone being mad but you just can't have people stockpiling large amounts of 80 year old explosives ya know?

  18. There has to be more to the story where were the shells stored somewhere dangerous ide guess i mean they dont mind french farmers "stockpiling" shells on the edge of fields awaiting collection

  25. If they find a shell and report it, they have to immediately stop fishing, stay on site, wait for the authorities, and do paperwork. It completely messes up timing as fisherman are usually on a tight schedule and the trucks wait at the docks to transport the catch immediately for processing. If the boat stops to wait on the cops then everyone else, the transport, the processors, the wholesalers, the distributors all of them fall off schedule. The entire timeline and chain gets disrupted. 300 Euros is not worth it.

  32. The local government should provide for inflatable buoys with NFC/GPS capable tags where the boat operators can insert their data and if a fisherman finds a shell, he can attach it to the buoy and chuck it back overboard.

    Since they're already throwing them overboard either way, at least they would get collected by police boats patrolling the area and with the information provided by the tags, the money could be sent via bank transfer (tax free, of course) to whoever found the shell.

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