[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 14 (Friday, February 11, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         RETALIATION ON FRANCE

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the Government of France has 
recently perpetuated an outrage on fishermen in this country and shown 
a contempt for the civilized rules of economic discourse between 
nations. Due to political pressures within France, the French 
Government has effectively banned exports of fish from the United 
States or elsewhere to France. The French have previously been one of 
the most difficult nations, when it comes to trying to reach 
multinational agreements on intellectual property, on trying to 
renegotiate an agreement they made at Blair House.
  Now they are simply unilaterally abrogating responsibilities and 
obligations they have under international law. American fishermen, 
already hurt by conservation measures which have been imposed upon 
them, find themselves at risk in the tens of hundreds of thousands of 
dollars as fish spoil because the French are illegitimately 
manipulating their inspection procedures to become an inappropriately 
protectionist nation.
  On behalf of myself, my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Studds], who chairs the Committee on Merchant Marine and 
Fisheries, and the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Torkildsen], I am 
today introducing a resolution in which we, among other things, call on 
the United States Trade Representative and, through him, the President, 
to immediately impose on the French retaliatory measures to counter the 
absolutely unjustified harm they are imposing for political reasons in 
France on fishermen in this country.
  I and others intend to continue to press until the fishermen of this 
country receive from our Government the appropriate benefit of the 
laws.

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