French fishermen have threatened to blockade ports and cut off supplies to Britain in the run up to Christmas.

In a major escalation of the post-Brexit fishing row, they have warned they could bring operations to a halt in the port of Calais and the Channel Tunnel.

They have accused the UK of creating a complex and onerous application process for fishing licenses and failing to grant them enough permits to make a living.

The president of the fishing committee for the northern Hauts-de-France region, Olivier Lepretre, said blocking the port in Calais and exports into the UK is ‘an option’.

‘If negotiating fails, we will stop all French and European products reaching the UK, and we will stop all British products reaching Europe,’ he said.

‘Unless Boris backs down, the Brits will not have so many nice things to eat this Christmas. I hope it doesn’t come to that.’

Britons are already stocking up for Christmas amid fears of empty shelves due to supply crisis sparked by an estimated shortage of 100,000 delivery drivers.

Mr Lepretre’s threat came a week after he and other fishing bosses held talks with the French maritime minister, Annick Girardin.

Just 31 out of a possible 70 eligible vessels in Hauts-de-France have been granted permission to operate in British waters, the fishing committee said, describing it as ‘an unacceptable decision condemned by the entire profession’.

They claim they have been ‘deceived’ by the British government over fishing licence applications and have called on the EU’s European Commission to take ‘retaliatory measures’.

‘UK authorities are refusing to grant full licences due to evidence deemed insufficient,’ it said.

‘The work has been however meticulously done by the French side and fishermen believe they have been deceived by the British government.’

This comes after France once again threatened to cut energy supplies to the UK if the terms of the Brexit deal aren’t met.

The country’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, said the agreement had to be ‘implemented fully’ and – should it not be – then ‘we will take European or national measures to exert pressure on the UK’.

Asked yesterday what actions could be taken, Mr Beaune pointed to both UK exports to France and European energy exports to the UK.

He said: ‘The UK depends on our energy exports, they think they can live alone while also beating up on Europe and, given that it doesn’t work, they engage in aggressive one-upmanship.’

The cross-Channel tensions over fishing have been long running with earlier rows leading to Navy ships being scrambled to Jersey amid concerns of a blockade of the island.

A previous threat to cut off energy supplies was made in May, when France warned  it was ready to take ‘retaliatory measures’ after accusing Jersey of dragging its feet over the issuing of licences to French boats.

Jersey gets 95% of its electricity supply from France, with just under half of the UK’s electricity imports, as of 2020, coming from the same source.

Paris has used this to gain ground following a series of application rejections to fish in British waters.

Last month the British government said it had approved just 12 of the 47 applications it received from French small boats.

That fury was further stoked in a later announcement by the Jersey government that of 170 licence applications it had received from French boats, 75 had been rejected.

Lord Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, hit back at the energy threat yesterday.

He said it was ‘unreasonable’ to accuse UK of limiting fishing licences to French boats, saying London had been ‘extremely generous’ to European Union requests.

He told a Conservative Party conference fringe event: ‘We have granted 98% of the licence applications from EU boats to fish in our waters according to the different criteria in the Trade and Co-operation Agreement, so we do not accept that we are not abiding by that agreement.

‘We have been extremely generous and the French, focusing in on a small category of boats and claiming we have behaved unreasonably, I think is not really a fair reflection of the efforts we have made.’

The Cabinet minister conceded that Britain ‘would have liked a different sort of fisheries deal’ in the Brexit deal but said the UK was striving to deliver on the agreed terms.

‘We agreed this deal and we are implementing in good faith, so I think it is unreasonable to suggest we are not,” he continued.

‘If there is a reaction from France, they will have to persuade others in the EU to go along with it, and it does need to be proportionate.’

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