Why a UK-French spat over fishing rights may trigger a no-deal Brexit

Disagreements over territory threaten to sink last-minute negotiations

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - SEPTEMBER 01:Fishermen load their catch of horse mackerel on a fishing boat in the early hours of the morning on September 1, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. September 1 marks th
(Image credit: 2016 Getty Images)

France will show “no weakness” during crunch negotiations over Brexit fishing rights, President Emmanuel Macron’s Europe minister has warned.

As Britain and the EU prepare to return to the negotiating table in a bid to hammer out a free trade deal, Clement Beaune insisted that France “will not accept a bad deal and a bad deal in fisheries in particular. We will have no weakness on this issue of fisheries, that is clear.”

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.