French Fishermen 1, Greenpeace 0
I think a lot of people would have been willing to pay to see this. And look who tried to claim “illegal blockade”:
Greenpeace was Thursday forced to give up trying to get its flagship, the Rainbow Warrior II, into the harbour of the southern French city of Marseille after a two-day blockade by French tuna fishermen and refusals from authorities.
The environmental activist group’s ship was seen leaving the area under escort from a French coastguard tugboat.
A senior Greenpeace activist on the vessel, Francois Provost, said the Rainbow Warrior II was now heading to Cartegena in southern Spain.
Its attempt to dock in Marseille to campaign against overfishing of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea sparked a protest blockade by French fishermen Wednesday.
They used more than 20 trawlers to encircle the Greenpeace ship and prevent it getting into the harbour.
The fishermen’s action paralysed the southern city’s busy port and left 1,000 people stranded there since late Wednesday because their ferries to Mediterranean destinations were unable to enter.
The fishermen only lifted the blockade after the Greenpeace vessel agreed to leave the area.
“The fishermen, based on Greenpeace’s agreement to be towed, have agreed to move away,” the prefet, or top regional government official, Christian Fremont, told journalists after a meeting with fishermen union representatives.
The organisation had called the French fishermen’s blockade “illegal,” even though it resembled the environmental group’s own sea protests in the past against other vessels, notably those carrying nuclear waste or hunting whales.
I’m not saying I support what the fishermen did in paralyzing the port, but the local/regional government should have done more to get Greenpeace to go away much sooner, as they had made it clear that Greenpeace would not be allowed to dock.
