[8] With the shortage, there was increased interest from fishermen at the fishing port of Camaret, on the northwest coast of France, in the Brazilian Northeast and the lobsters that inhabited there.

[10][a] In November of the same year, France requested authorization again, now with João Goulart as the nation's president, as Jânio Quadros had resigned a month earlier.

During the negotiations to establish a form of modus vivendi regarding the crustacean, France argued that the lobster moved from one place to another by jumping and, therefore, should be considered as a fish and not a resource of the continental shelf.

[16] In his third year as president, De Gaulle sent destroyers and an aircraft carrier of the Clemenceau-class to the Atlantic Ocean to escort the fishing boats in their unauthorized activities from Brazilian warships.

[15] The same day, Brazilian Foreign Minister Hermes Lima considered the French approach as an act of hostility: "The attitude of France is inadmissible, and our government will not retreat.

On February 11, 1963, a Task Force led by the aircraft carrier Clemenceau departed from Toulon, France, along with 3 destroyers, 5 frigates, 1 cruiser, 1 tanker and 1 dispatch boat.

[10][b][18] From the moment the Navy General Staff (EMA) learned of the movement of a French warship to the Brazilian coast, a search for the vessel began.

High-Frequency Radiogoniometric stations in Recife and Bahia began tracking the electromagnetic emissions of all French ships sailing in the Atlantic Ocean.

[19] The Brazilian Government responded by mobilizing a large contingent of the Navy and Air Force, in a literal preparation for war, on February 22, on the eve of Carnival.

On February 26, a P-15 of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), patrolling far from the coast, detected on radar a large ship heading towards Fernando de Noronha.

[21]Days earlier, when the conflict broke out, Brazil was on holiday, and much of the military personnel of the navy were on leave, requiring a major call-up in the early hours of Carnival Saturday.

It was during the dictatorship, on December 10, 1964, that Brazil and France reached a solution: an agreement allowing the exploitation of lobsters by French ships, in limited quantity and time, sharing the profits.

[20] On 6 July 1966, the Administrative Tribunal of Rennes summarized the French government's claims that lobsters are like fish and that since they swim about in the open sea, they could not be considered part of the continental shelf.

[24] Admiral Paulo Moreira da Silva, Brazil's Navy expert in the field of oceanography who had been sent to assist the diplomatic committee during the general discussions,[25] argued that for Brazil to accept the French scientific thesis that a lobster would be considered a fish when it "leaps" on the seafloor, it would be required in the same way to accept the Brazilian premise that when a kangaroo "hops", it would be considered a bird.

[26] Decisions of the Conseil d'État then dismissed the allegations that the French government had authorized the plaintiff shipowners to send their vessels to go fish for lobsters on high seas or to off the coast of Brazil.