BBC World at One: Shots fired from French vessel in The Channel

If it's a main armament of a the warship, you'd absolutely do a notice to mariners. You make broadcasts on the radio to let seafarers in the vicinity know what was happening. That's not at all the case with routine small arms firing...I think if I was on a boat 300m away and heard some some shots being fired, I would find that pretty pretty startling until I found out what was going on...[but] I don't think this appears to be an incident where the French are actively trying to intimidate a British politician or the BBC."