When Martyn Craddock posted a video online of effluent being drained into the sea near his home town of Seaford on the south coast on England, he might not have expected the wider impact it would have.

After being viewed more than 2 million times, the footage showing effluent being pumped directly into the sea off the coast of East Sussex, under the famous white cliffs, has fed directly into a much larger ongoing issue between France and the UK - the state of their shared waters. 

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French lawmakers in the European parliament are urging the EU to take measures to end British discharges of untreated wastewater into shared waters - part of what they say is an unacceptable lowering of environmental standards since Brexit.

The three leading French lawmakers said in a letter to EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius that they feared harm to marine biodiversity and to fish and shellfish industry.

"We cannot let the environment, the economic activity of our fishermen and the health of citizens be seriously endangered by the repeated negligence of the United Kingdom in the management of its wastewater," they said in a statement.

"Britain is no longer subject to EU environmental rules after leaving the bloc", they added, and "have chosen to cut its water quality standards despite being a signatory to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which contains provisions on environmental protection."

British water treatment facilities temporarily discharge raw sewage and other effluent  into seas and rivers if they are inundated by heavy rainfall and risk flooding. Environmental campaigners say effluent discharges have become practically routine and British privatised water companies, which enjoy regional monopolies, have been widely condemned for paying dividends to shareholders and increasing executives' salries while failing to prevent discharges and leaks. 

Southern Water, responsible for water systems in East Sussex said the discharge filmed by Martyn Craddock was not sewage but "rainwater and debris/silt from drains", according to The Times newspaper.

On Friday, the British government set out a plan to tackle sewage discharges, requiring water companies to do more to treat sewage before it is discharged, and to invest in improving storm overflows, with fines for those who do not meet new targets.