It seems that in Saumaty a little asleep there is urgency!! Following the testimony of the previous walk, we felt the need to clarify what we had been able to understand about the operation of the Mediterranean fishery. Rémi, who has become a specialist of the subject is launching… "It still exists today on the Mediterranean coasts, one of the oldest maritime institutions: the prud'homie of fishing. Stemming from the old regime's corporations, the prud'homie survived the revolution, before being consecrated to the legal level in the mid-19th century. Today, 33 prud'homies are spread over the coasts of Languedoc Roussillon (11 prud'homies), the region Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur (18 prud'homies) and Corsica (4 prud'ho
mies)» Rémi explains how the sector works, not simple…
- Prud'homies that have existed since the 10th century and which have succeeded in crossing the various major reorganizations of trades (especially in the French Revolution and after the second world war)
- Local and regional committees created in 1945 with uncertain roles and who must sometimes deal with Prud'homies not always in working order (notably in Marseille)
- Trade unions
- A maritime fishing competency that is exclusive to the European Union
All this gives a legal situation and situations of complex facts and to tell the truth we get lost a little… Danièle, to put a little order in all this, draws and promises to bone up the synthesis document that Rémi transmits to us on the status of the fisherman and the legal analysis of the sector (file at the end of the story). 
What is still remembered is that unlike Spain or Italy where fishermen had to cope and formed in cooperatives that gradually structured the sector until today, France experienced a presence of the State more strong who has had a supportive role but also a destabilizing action by cutting the development of autonomy capacities (old debate). Caught up in the games with the institution, the aid to such a stream or to another, the sector gradually disorganized, divided and got a little lost in quarrels of deadly powers today. One of the symptoms of this lack of autonomy would be the observation that resettlement movements of young people are experimenting in other countries, but not or little at home. All the fishermen we cross converge on the fact that it is impossible mission… To digest this course of law and sociology of work we will share a small unloading of mules (muges). We learn the differences between yellow, grey and black mules, that black is better than the Wolf while the grey is not worth too much, and that if there had been a chance to find yellow in this gray bench , Esposito the trader would have made sort o
ne to one fish… After wandering in search of the "shrimp factory" to finally find a cannery to abandon (Unimer closed its doors 6 months ago after losing the SNCM market), we end up finding David revel and his family business of cooking CR evettes. 
Appointment is finally taken for the next session, Tuesday, April 26th, which will start under the sign of shrimp, tasting in support. We will then be in touch with the port Director's meeting to discuss the projects of transformation of places and activities. And by then we can potasser…
- Fishing statistics: http://sih.ifremer.fr/Publications/Syntheses/Facade-Atlantique/Synthese-des-flottilles-de-peche
- Professional organizations: http://www.comite-peches.fr
- Les prud'homies: read the legal analysis of Sébastien Mabile "the prud'homies institution in the Mediterranean"