Brexit sends ripples of uncertainty down France's coast

Long lines of trucks carrying stockpiles for British companies jam highways leing to France's rrn port of Calais, while in coastal town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, French fishermen pull in ir lines and fear that battles over fishing rights will soon erupt.

Up and down France's rrn coast, uncertainty of Brexit is causing ripples of chaos and frustration.

With just three weeks left to go before Britain is completely out of European Union, one kws if re will be a post-Brexit tre deal or a chaotic ecomic rupture between two sides.

Britain left EU on Jan. 31 but remains in its massive market until end of year.

That means, barring a tre agreement, New Year's Day could herald quite a hangover for businesses on both sides of English Channel.

For Mathieu Pinto, a 28-year-old French fisherman, a -deal Brexit will disastrously impact his right to fish in British waters, where he says he makes “between 70% and 80%" of his yearly income.

Pinto is based in France's coastal town of Boulogne, home to Europe’s largest fish-processing center. He h just returned from a night fishing sea-snails or whelk when he spoke to Associated Press. He worries that his days of making a living in family business could be numbered.

“(A -deal Brexit) will alrey impact us hugely. And n we are going to have to share our French waters with foreigners as well,” he said.

That would mean fighting for fish in French maritime territory alongside rrn EU neighbors from Nerlands and Belgium, which he says could create an impossibly tense situation. re is simply is t eugh catch to go around without access to UK waters, he said.

re will be war. Let’s t hide it. re will be war, Pinto said.

Ireland and Denmark are also among those directly affected by potential closing off of U.K. waters.

Under current EU rules, EU countries can currently fish in British maritime territory, as y have for deces. But overexploitation of se rules — and seas — have meant that fish numbers have declined sharply.

And so, too, did British fisherman. Saving British waters for U.K. fishermen became a rallying cry, fueling Brexit vote for U.K. to leave bloc. Since n, fishing rules have remained a major issue at heart of Brexit impasse.

Meanwhile, in Calais, trails of truck exhaust fumes on roside illustrate path to Brexit is, literally, jammed with uncertainty.

And that has caused British companies to stockpile goods, leing to a huge increase in number of trucks heing to Calais’ port and undersea tunnel to Britain in past few weeks.

French police are delaying hundreds of trucks at roside to cope with soaring traffic flow. It's a perfect storm on highways, coming just as a coronavirus-related tourism slump has reduced number of vehicle-carrying ferries crossing English Channel.

Sebastien Rivera, chief of France’s National Federation of Ro Transport, a leing industry group that represents some 350 companies that send ir goods to U.K., blasted situation as “catastrophic.”

“For about last three weeks, we’ve seen an increase in flow of traffic toward Great Britain due to stockpiling. platforms, wher it’s port or (Euro)tunnel, don’t have capacity to absorb this increase in traffic,” he said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week re's a “strong possibility” that negotiations on a new ecomic relationship with EU to take effect Jan. 1 will fail. He and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have set a Sunday deline to decide wher to keep talking or prepare for a -deal break.

A failure to secure a tre deal would mean tariffs and or barriers going up that would hurt both sides, although most ecomists think British ecomy would take a greater hit because U.K. does almost half of its tre with 27-nation bloc.

Rivera said sheer uncertainty of what tre rules are going to be has caused ermous stress and ditional costs to transport industry, t to mention hours of wasted time that truck drivers have spent stuck in traffic jams.

“It’s t right that we’re three weeks away and we don’t have answers,” he said.

(IM CREDITS: AP)