French trawlers blockade straits of Dover in fuel protest

French fishermen blocked the straits of Dover, the world's busiest seaway, with slow-moving trawlers yesterday in a dispute over catch-quotas and fuel prices.

The 25 trawlers, sailing abreast, dawdled along at three knots, instead of the normal 25-knot speed of freighters and oil-tankers passing between Kent and the Pas de Calais. The maritime go-slow escalated a week-long series of protests, including blockades of French oil refineries and attacks on the fish counters of supermarkets. The fishermen say diesel fuel forms 40 per cent of their costs and they cannot survive the steep increases in oil prices of the past three months. They have been demanding direct government subsidies to reduce the dock-side price of diesel oil from €0.75 (60p) a litre to €0.40.

Such a direct subsidy would be illegal under EU laws which guarantee free and fair competition between member states. The French Agriculture Minister, Michel Barnier, attempted to resolve the dispute yesterday, by promising a €40m package of "direct compensation" which would refund fishermen the difference in their fuel bills between €0.75 a litre and €0.40 a litre.

Some leaders said this was an "advance" but many grass-roots fishermen are insisting the protests must continue until they have received cheap fuel at the dockside and higher fishing quotas for cod in the North Sea.

The go-slow in the Pas de Calais and some oil refinery blockades were suspended last night but fishermen's leaders admitted they had lost control of the "base", or grass-roots and further protests could explode over the British bank holiday weekend.

President Sarkozy promised fishermen a €310m package of aid after he braved a noisy demonstration in Brittany in January. Fishermen now complain that a 30 per cent rise in oil prices in three months has made the Sarkozy aid programme inadequate.

After talks with fishermen's leaders yesterday, M. Barnier promised to bring forward payments of €110m, including an extra €40m to compensate for high fuel prices. Earlier in the week, this money was presented as a down-payment on the existing €310m Sarkozy aid package. Yesterday M. Barnier said that the €40m was "additional".

President Sarkozy insists he is a reforming President, but in his handling of the sometimes violent fishermen's protests, he has followed the same line of appeasement and concession as his predecessors.

He finds himself squeezed, however, between the fishermen's demands, EU rules and the risk that French farmers and lorry drivers will demand the same kind of concessions. Paris insisted yesterday its fuel compensation package would not breach EU law. Brussels said it was not so sure and would investigate.

There were also threats from Belgian and Portuguese fishermen to take action of their own if French – and Spanish – fishermen received what they saw as "unfair" subsidies from their governments.

M. Barnier appeared to have persuaded fishermen's leaders yesterday that his offer amounted to the same thing as subsidised diesel prices. The difference was, he said, that it would not breach EU law.

Some trawlermen predicted, however, that the offer would be rejected.