Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Brittany Ferries Boss Re-Elected President of French Chamber of Shipping In Advance of EU Summit On Brexit Extension

10th April 2019
From the Land to the Sea: Jean-Marc Roué, a Breton farmer and boss of Brittany Ferries has concerns over Brexit. From the Land to the Sea: Jean-Marc Roué, a Breton farmer and boss of Brittany Ferries has concerns over Brexit. Credit: Brittany Ferries -twitter

#ferries - A Breton farmer and boss of Brittany Ferries Jean-Marc Roué has recently been re-elected president of Armateurs de France, the French equivalent of the UK Chamber of Shipping, writes Jehan Ashmore.

This afternoon the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May is to make a plea at an EU emergency summit in Brussels, by proposing to all 27 leaders to delay Brexit with an extension date of 30th June.  

The ferry operator Armement Bretagne-Angleterre-Irelande, or B.A.I. officially began sailing on 2 January 1973, just a day after Britain joined the Common Market of the European Economic Community (EEC) a predecessor of the EU.

B.A.I. which trades as Brittany Ferries, was founded by Alex Gourvennec who saw this chance to end the geographical isolation of Brittany by exporting vegetables to the UK marketplace.

A ro-ro freighter was purchased and renamed Kerisnel, a small Breton village made famous for its cauliflowers. The first sailing took place from Roscoff to Plymouth, Cornwall. 

To this day, farmers in the most western region of France remain the company's main shareholders.

Click here for related story of the UK Government's contract announced in December last year with the ferry operator to ease potential problems in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Published in Brittany Ferries
Jehan Ashmore

About The Author

Jehan Ashmore

Email The Author

Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).