An environmental protester from London has been injured with a grappling hook while on a raid against tuna fishing boats, Greenpeace has said.

Frank Hewetson was injured when the charity ambushed the French vessels in the Mediterranean. He is now recovering in hospital.

A Greenpeace spokesman said the fishermen had an "extremely violent" reaction to their raid.

The French Embassy in London has not yet made a comment.

But a Greenpeace video shows a crew driving a larger boat into a dinghy, sending an activist into the water.
Capsized dinghy It is claimed Greenpeace's boats were sunk during the incident

The organisation also released a photo apparently showing a French fisherman swinging a gaff hook at a Greenpeace Dinghy.

Mr Hewetson was on one of two inflatable craft trying to collapse the fishermen's net to prevent them catching tuna.

Greenpeace said the craft were sunk when fisherman slashed them.

Spokesman Oliver Knowles said: "It's clear the blue fin tuna in the Mediterranean is a massively over-fished species - already 80% fished out.

"What has happened here this afternoon in the water around us is that commercial interest has won out over the need to preserve a species."

Greenpeace - don't fcuk with the French! Didn't you learn anything the last time?

Greenpeace - don't fcuk with the French! Didn't you learn anything the last time?

I honestly believe Greenpeace would happily see an activist killed just for the publicity

Animal liberators have devastated parts of the UK wildlife when they released mink. It has had a bad effect on the water vole population. Sometimes they go too far, but their long term aims would benefit the fishermen, but with the EU fisheries policy it will mean that while the French comply the Spanish will just come in and destroy the fish stocks and deprive them of an income and a future. Short term obligations win out.

Eh? The Spanish are subject to EU limits on fishing too.

Yes but the Spanish over fished their waters, then when the UK were decommissioning trawlers the Spanish bought the trawlers and quota rights, and are now fishing here. What is stopping them from doing the same else where?

Yes but when they fish they will chuck back any fish that they do not want but they will not survive so they could fish many times their quota. That does a lot of damage to the fish stock. The Icelanders have a better method. They have fisheries inspectors on each ship and they bring back all the fish, if one fish has reached its quota they shut down the entire area to enable stocks to recover. This works, and you only have to see what happened to the Grand Banks when that is not followed.

Greenpeace - don't fcuk with the French! Didn't you learn anything the last time?

I honestly believe Greenpeace would happily see an activist killed just for the publicity

+1 on both counts