French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement to restrict bottom trawling in French marine protected areas (MPAs) has prompted sceptical reactions among environmental NGOs, even though others welcomed it as “a good first step.”

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In a statement released Sunday, environmental protection group Bloom said that Macron had “confirmed that the imposture of France’s maritime protection policy would continue, namely that there would never be a binding framework to truly protect so-called protected marine areas.”

In an interview with the regional press on the eve of the Nice Oceans Summit (Unoc-3), Macron announced a restriction on bottom trawling in certain areas of French marine protected areas (MPAs).

He admitted that this fishing technique, which scrapes the seabed, “disrupts biodiversity and ecosystems that we must learn to protect.”

Bottom trawling will be just one of many items on the agenda at a week-long conference – hosted by France and Costa Rica – to confront what the United Nations calls a global “emergency” in the oceans.

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“There’s been a tiny bit of progress on the wording: bottom trawling has taken the place it deserves” in government communications, François Chartier of Greenpeace told French news agency AFP.

However, “we get the impression he’s announcing that he’s not going to announce anything,” he added, deploring the “lack of ambition” in the president’s statements.

Greenpeace is calling for a ban on bottom trawling in 30 percent of French waters classified as marine protected areas.

The NGO Oceana hailed it as “a good first step,” in the words of its spokesperson Nicolas Fournier, because “until now, it was taboo to talk about these issues.”

Call for a ban

Bottom trawling was carried out for 17,000 hours in French marine protected areas in 2024, according to a report published in May by Oceana, which calls for a ban on the practice.

Fournier noted that Macron cited the Port-Cros MPA (Var) in his interview, “where there is already no trawling.”

“If we decide to ban it, the impact on biodiversity will be minimal,” he told AFP.

“Banning bottom trawling in a marine protected area does not make it ‘strictly protected,’ because that would require banning all extractive activities, including fishing,” he added.

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To date, 33 percent of French waters are covered by at least one MPA, but most of them allow all fishing practices.

Macron announced a strengthening of the protection of these MPAs to achieve the European objective of placing 10 percent of its maritime domain under strong protection “as of 1 January, 2026,” four years ahead of the set deadline.

Bloom says the French president is claiming credit for the initiative made by the president of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson, who is due to announce in Nice “the creation of a vast marine protected area of ​​5.5 million square kilometres, including 1.1 million square kilometres under strict protection.”

Areas under high or full protection, the strictest level of protection, currently represent 2.6 percent of the French maritime domain and are almost exclusively located overseas.

(with AFP)

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