A long term overview of freshwater fisheries in France

The large-scale production and economy of French freshwater fisheries is not documented in the scientific literature. This article fills this knowledge gap by synthesizing the data collected since the post-war period, including a large part of the grey literature. France presents a wide variety of surface waters, benefiting from a reduction in pollution and a growing population with an emphasis on leisure activities and on locally sourced food products. Despite this favorable geographical, ecological and human situation, French freshwater fisheries have been in decline since the mid-1970s with a chronically negative trade balance for aquatic products. During this period, numbers of commercial fishers have decreased three-fold due to their affiliation to an agricultural status, and to their dependence on migratory species such as eel, shad and lamprey, which are all in decline. Simultaneously, numbers of anglers have also seen a slow but continuous decline, cushioned somewhat in the last 10 years thanks to the creation of sub-annual fishing cards and the expansion of the total to include the younger classes. Vestiges of a non-commercial fishery, similar to recreational subsistence fishing and employing gear such as dip nets, traps, long lines or even gillnets, have been maintained in a much reduced state around large rivers as well as in the marshes and estuaries of the Atlantic coast. In this detailed study of these different categories of fishing practices in the mid-2010s, we estimate numbers of fishers at 2 million active anglers, 4000 subsistence fishers, and 400 commercial fishers. Their annual catches are roughly 12,709 t for anglers, 209 t for subsistence fishers and 1,251 t for commercial fishers for a total of 14,169 t. The major part of the overall economic worth, estimated at 980,000 K€, is attributable to recreational fishers (anglers).