A French-born SNP MSP has written to French President Franois Hollande appealing for action to end the damage being done to Scotland’s seafood industry by road haulage disruption on the Continent.
Christian Allard’s plea came as it emerged a mob of 200 angry French farmers hijacked a convoy of seven lorries carrying fish from the Highlands to the Continent.
Drivers were threatened, saw their trucks smashed open and cargoes worth around £200,000 destroyed in the terrifying incident after they were herded into a roadblock trap in Brittany in the north west of France.
The fish convoy was caught up in a national French crisis over food prices in which striking farmers angry about cheap foreign imports have gone to the extreme of challenging any trucks from abroad believed to be carrying food.
Now Mr Allard, MSP for North East Scotland, is calling on the French and UK governments to ensure the safe passage of fresh exports.
“I recognise the French farmers’ frustration but their actions defy all logic,” he said. “Our HGV drivers have been under attack, in Calais at the tunnel for months and now on French highways by protesters this has to stop otherwise the seafood industry in Scotland will continue to suffer.”
In the past week, rioters have dumped manure in cities and fish outside supermarkets as well as blocking stretches of the route between Caen and Lorient.
Driver Gordon Ramsay, 40, from Invergordon, attempted to fight off between six and eight Frenchmen who encircled him to seize his documents.
Mr Ramsay, who works for Ross-shire based J&D Cowper which had two drivers caught up in the drama, said: “It was intimidating because you didn’t know what was going to happen.
“We tried to tell them it was French fish, from a French boat for a French market, but all the seven loads just got emptied on to the road.”
It is understood that the French fishing vessel docked at Lochinver whose catch was destroyed is making a claim against the French government.
Michael Cowper, general manager of J&D Cowper, said: “It’s almost like France is imploding. God forbid anything like it happens in this country. It would be a disaster.”