LONDON • British Royal Navy vessels and French police boats patrolled Thursday near the English Channel island of Jersey, where French fishermen angry about losing access to its waters gathered for a maritime protest.

The irate mariners set off flares and entered the island’s main harbor in the first major dispute between France and Britain over fishing rights in the wake of the U.K.’s Brexit divorce from the European Union.

EU officials appealed for calm, but also accused the U.K. of not respecting the terms of the post-Brexit trade deal.

The French naval policing boats Athos, which has a large machine gun on its front deck, and the unarmed Themis were sent to keep watch on waters between France and Jersey, French maritime authorities said. The deployment came after Britain on Wednesday directed two naval vessels, the HMS Severn and the HMS Tamar, to also patrol the waters around the island, a self-governing British Crown Dependency near the coast of northern France.

French fishermen steamed into Jersey waters to protest new post-Brexit rules requiring them to submit their past fishing activities in order to receive a license to continue operating in the island’s waters. French fishing communities claim some boats that have operated around Jersey for years have suddenly had their access restricted.

Dimitri Rogoff, who heads a group of fishermen, said about 50 boats from French ports along the western Normandy coast joined the protest Thursday morning, gathering off the Jersey port of St. Helier. He said the protest over licenses was not an attempt to blockade the port.

“This isn’t an act of war,” Rogoff said in a phone interview. “It’s an act of protest.”

Fishing vessels at sea off the coast of Jersey on Thursday.

the associated press