Foreign News: Vital Space

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A homard is a lobster. A langouste is a big edible crayfish. For centuries French and British fishermen have been trapping both in the swarming lobster grounds around minuscule Maitresse Island, largest of the tiny Minquiers group in the English Channel.

An Anglo-French convention of 1839 made the Minquiers Islands an international fishing zone. Shelters were permitted on them but not stone buildings for fear they would be used as fortifications. After the World War the question of sovereignty was again raised and the Minquiers group was made part of Britain's Channel Islands.

There French & British fishermen swapped langouste (which Frenchmen prefer) for homard (which Englishmen prefer). Sometimes they robbed each other's lobster pots instead, fought pitched battles. But not until last week did the microscopic Minquiers Islands become an international trouble spot.

Fun started when envious French fisherfolk noting that perfidious Britons had built a stone shelter on one of the Minquiers, while law-abiding Frenchmen had none, raised 20,000 francs by public subscription to build one. Led by Yachtsman-Painter "Marin-Marie" (Durand le Couppel de Saint-Front, who in 1936 took a 40-foot motorboat from Manhattan to Cherbourg), 40 Breton fishermen landed on Maitresse, began building.

But Britain's eyes are everywhere. The Foreign Office protested. Hurriedly France sent seaplanes which dropped orders to desist. Painter Marin-Marie and 40 Breton fishermen took their defeat in good part, drank a glass of champagne, sang the Marseillaise, desisted.

Foreign Office & Quai d'Orsay declared the incident closed. Cracked the Quai d'Orsay: "We do not consider Maitresse Vital space' (lebensraum)"