MPAgate: the proof of France’s lie at UNOC

10 June 2025

France has been caught in a lie. It has announced that it will go from having less than 0.1% marine protected areas in its metropolitan waters to 4% by the end of 2026. But BLOOM has analyzed the map produced by the government and revealed this statement to be an environmental scam: the government’s announcements will do absolutely nothing to ban bottom trawling, the most destructive fishing technique in history, in new protected areas, simply because… the areas designated as “protected” by the end of 2026 already ban bottom trawling! 

Since our revelations, journalists have been quick to ask the government for a map of the areas to be newly protected from bottom trawling. 

The government has still not produced this map, which represents the map of shame and proof of France’s dishonest presentation of the status quo and its fierce determination to protect industrial fishing lobbies. Our researcher Raphaël Seguin produced the map himself. 

Here’s a preview of the map of disaster, the MPA-gate map. This is the map we hope to see broadcasted tonight on French television, so that the President can explain his lie to all French citizens. 

On the eve of the World Ocean Day and the opening of the United Nations Ocean Conference, Emmanuel Macron announced in the regional press: 

“We are going to make important announcements to enable protection and controls (…) in certain clearly identified areas (…) and to stop all activity, particularly bottom trawling”. 

We had to wait until the press kit produced by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition was released on the evening of June 8th to understand, by analyzing the maps provided, that the government was planning to label 4% of metropolitan waters as “strong protection” and ban bottom trawling there. The international and European objective of having 30% of marine areas protected from all destructive fishing techniques and trawling by 2030 was already crumbling to pieces. 

But then BLOOM discovered that these 4% of marine areas supposedly “strongly” protected by the end of 2026, and in which bottom trawling would be banned, are located… in areas where bottom trawling is already banned under European regulations. 

Faced with increasingly pressing questions from journalists asking for explanations about these maps, the government explained to reporters that “the zones selected for the 4% are not made up of areas where bottom trawling is already banned. They partly overlap in the Atlantic, less so in the Mediterranean“. Without ever providing the long-awaited map of the new zones in which trawling would be banned. 

At the end of the day on Monday, the President of the Republic, still on the same line, explained that “I wouldn’t sell you a map that already existed. You can count on me, if that had been the case, I would have already said so“. 

But we clearly couldn’t count on the president to give us the real map. Here it is, the map of France’s deception at UNOC: 

This is the confetti that the government is presenting at UNOC as “important announcements”. This UNOC summit is a diplomatic shipwreck. 

To find out more, read our analysis decoding Emmanuel Macron’s lies to journalists on June 9.   

Methodology:

With no precise GPS points indicated on the maps taken from the Ministry of Ecological Transition’s press kit, BLOOM subtracted from the map presented on page 27 (“deployment timetable for strong protection (ZPF) at sea”) the areas already banned from bottom trawling under the European deep-sea fishing regulation in force since January 2017.