Oil Pollution in French Waters

This chapter presents an overview of the French Mediterranean marine pollution prevention and response organization and its recent evolution in relation to the threat and consequences of tankers accidents and operational spills in the maritime areas under French jurisdiction. Accidental shipping spills statistics for the whole Mediterranean from 1977 to 2010, gathered and exploited by Girin in Part I (The International Context) of this book, were compared with existing data for water areas under French jurisdiction. During the period surveyed, there was no accidental spill above 10 tons in those waters. However, in 1991, waves, wind and current carried, to the famous “Côte d’Azur,” an estimated 10,000 tons of weathered and partially burnt oil from a 144,000 tons spill in Italian waters. As regards operational pollution, aerial surveillance reported an average 330 spills per year during the decade 2000 to 2009 in the area of the Mediterranean under French jurisdiction; down to 115 spills in 2012.

The chapter examines then the specificities of the Mediterranean waters under French jurisdiction as regards oil pollution and highlights the main areas of progress under way. This concerns mainly (1) the evolution of aerial and satellite surveillance of operational spills and the transfer of that experience to accidental spills; (2) the prosecution of offenders and the measures taken to constrain shipowners to deal with the risk of possible pollution from wrecks, at their expense; (3) the sharing of experience and response with partners from the industry and counterparts in neighbouring countries; (4) support to initiatives of the Regional Marine Pollution Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).