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In Britain, just 12,000 people fish from 6,000 vessels and contribute less than half of one percent to the country’s gross domestic product — less than that of London’s fashionable department store Harrods. But in coastal towns and villages on both sides of the English Channel, fishing is of vital importance.

During the 2016 referendum campaign, Mr. Johnson promised fishing workers in Britain that Brexit would reclaim control over the country’s national waters, which have been shared with French and other European fishing crews for decades or, in some cases, centuries.

But fishing is also resonant in France, not least for President Emmanuel Macron, who faces an election in 2022. French fleets depend heavily on fish caught in British waters. Under current quotas, for example, 84 percent of the cod caught in one zone off the English coast is allocated to France, while just nine percent goes to Britain.

In the harried final days of the talks, European negotiators pushed Britain hard to continue to allow their fishing crews to have broad access to its waters.

The final days of Britain’s long divorce from the European Union were marked by haggling over something the two sides have shared for centuries: haddock and cod.