December 3, 2022 — U.S. diplomacy is trumping environmental activism today when it comes to Maine lobster, with 200 of the Pine State’s signature seafood on the Thursday dinner menu for French president Emmanuel Macron’s visit with President Biden.
News reports on the menu for dinner at the White House described butter-poached Maine lobster as the opener before beef with shallot marmalade and triple-cooked butter potatoes.
Read the full article at National Fisherman
December 1, 2022 — A Democratic lawmaker is pushing back on President Biden’s pompous White House celebration, where 200 live lobsters will be served for guests Thursday during a state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The night before the dinner, where guests are expected to enjoy lobster and caviar, Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, took to Twitter to urge Biden to meet with the lobstermen his administration is “currently regulating out of business.”
“If the Biden White House can prioritize purchasing 200 Maine lobsters for a fancy dinner, [Biden] should also take the time to meet with the Maine lobstermen his administration is currently regulating out of business,” Golden said in a tweet.
The red, white and blue-themed dinner with Macron, France’s first lady Brigitte Macron, and others will be the first state visit Biden has allowed at the White House since 2021 as other events were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Golden’s tweet is his latest call on Biden to uphold his promises to protect Maine’s lobster industry, especially amid a new dispute with whale conservationists.
The Maine lawmaker released a statement in October saying Biden broke his promise to Maine lobstermen.
“In 2020, while running for president, Biden pledged ‘I will work to protect the livelihood and safety of the fishing community’ in reference to lobstermen. He has yet to take a single action to make good on that pledge,” Golden said.
Read the full article at Fox News
December 1, 2022 — A Maine Democratic lawmaker gave President Biden a verbal pinch for shipping in 200 lobsters to serve at Thursday’s White House state dinner — amid a fierce debate over how the state’s fishing industry should be regulated.
After it emerged that butter-poached Maine lobster would be on the menu for Biden’s White House meal with French President Emmanuel Macron, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) took aim at the ritzy celebration.
“If the Biden White House can prioritize purchasing 200 Maine lobsters for a fancy dinner, @POTUS should also take the time to meet with the Maine lobstermen his administration is currently regulating out of business,” Golden tweeted late Wednesday.
November 5, 2021 — Talks between the British and French governments to settle a post-Brexit fishing row have ended in stalemate as No 10 said it did not believe Paris would follow through on threats to slow down trade.
The Brexit minister, David Frost, spent about 90 minutes meeting France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, in Paris on Thursday, but despite smiles for the cameras the two sides remained far apart.
Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said: “We don’t believe the French are planning to move forward with the previous threats they’ve made.” Beaune, however, said France wanted to give dialogue a chance, but “the option for retaliatory measures remains open”.
France and Britain are at odds over the rights of French fishers in the six to 12-mile zone around the UK shore, and Jersey and Guernsey. The dispute threatened to tip into a full-blown trade war until the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for more talks on Monday, holding back on a threat to slow down British imports coming into France.
Read the full story at The Guardian
November 2, 2021 — France’s president offered Britain extra time for negotiations on Monday to try to reach a compromise on a troubling post-Brexit fishing spat, hours ahead of a threatened French blockade of British ships and trucks.
France has threatened to bar British boats from some of its ports and tighten checks on boats and trucks carrying British goods if more French vessels aren’t licensed to fish in U.K. waters by Tuesday. Paris has also suggested it might restrict energy supplies to the Channel Islands, which are heavily dependent on French electricity.
The French government had said the port blockade would begin at midnight Monday if no compromise was found. But late in the day, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said talks would continue this week and no measures would be taken until at least through Thursday.
Speaking to reporters Monday in Glasgow, Scotland, where he is attending an international climate conference, Macron said the discussions center on a proposal he made to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson after they met at the G-20 meeting in Rome on Sunday.
Read the full story at the Associated Press
November 2, 2021 — Tensions have flared again in an ongoing dispute between France and the United Kingdom over post-Brexit fishing rights.
On Monday, 1 November, French President Emmanuel Macron postponed trade sanctions that would have blocked British fishermen from French ports beginning on 2 November, to allow negotiators from both sides to work on new proposals to defuse the dispute. Macron also delayed the implementation of a “go slow” order at border checks for incoming shipments from the U.K., and temporarily backed off threats to cut energy supplies to the Channel Island of Jersey, which is controlled by the U.K. Macron said he called for the delay in order to allow negotiators from both sides to work on new proposals to defuse the dispute.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
April 27, 2017 — After “the battle of Whirlpool,” when Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron both went hunting for France’s blue-collar vote at a threatened home appliance factory, the presidential candidates clashed over fish in a return to more traditional campaigning on Thursday.
The anti-European Union far-right populist Le Pen was up before dawn to cruise aboard a fishing trawler on the Mediterranean. The sea trip was her latest television-friendly effort to portray herself as the candidate of France’s workers against the centrist former banker and economy minister Macron, whom she paints as the candidate of the financial, political and pro-EU elite.
“My grandfather was a fisherman, so I am in my element,” Le Pen said after her pre-dawn voyage aboard the “Grace of God 2” trawler.
She said France will take back control of its maritime policies if she is elected in the second-round vote on May 7. She again tore into Macron’s more pro-market, free-trade economic program. Macron fired back on Twitter, saying her proposals to take France out of the EU would sink France’s fishing industry.
“Have a nice trip. Europe’s exit she proposes, it’s the end of French fishing. Think about it,” he tweeted, before visiting the ethnically mixed Paris suburb of Sarcelles.
As he met with residents, Macron continued the counter-attack, calling Le Pen’s National Front party “xenophobic.”
“There’s Marine Le Pen’s project of a fractured, closed France….On the other hand, you have my project which is a republican, patriotic project aiming at … reconciling France,” he said.
Macron went into a gymnasium to meet members of an association that works to socially integrate local youth through sports and by helping them to set up businesses and find jobs.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times