Two local authorities in south-west France are seeking compensation for oil damage incurred by the sinking of the tanker Prestige off the coast of Spain.

Oil from the tanker has devastated the Atlantic coast of Spain and France and its precious fishing industries.

The Prestige's Greek captain, who is now in jail, said on Wednesday that his vessel had been in "perfect condition" before it sank.

"I believe something struck the ship. Perhaps it was a contained or a powerful wave," Apostolos Mangouras told the Greek daily, Ta Nea.

"If I thought the ship was in bad shape, I wouldn't be its captain," he said.

Captain Mangouras is facing prosecution in Spain on charges that he refused to have his ship towed out of sea.

French suits

The French lawsuits are being brought by officials in the Gironde and Arcachon regions.

Oil is now turning up on the beaches of northern Portugal and there have been fresh slicks near Landes in south-west France, but not in the kind of volumes seen in the past, local officials said.

In the Gironde, north of Bordeaux, the authorities took advice from Corinne Lepage, a former environment minister and lawyer, who is already seeking damages for a 1999 spill from the Erika tanker off Brittany.

"I think the complaint... will be registered by the end of the week," Xavier Pintat, mayor of the coastal town of Soulac, said.

Mr Pintat has been appointed by a group of districts in Gironde to lead the legal campaign.

In Arcachon, west of Bordeaux, local mayors have joined together to plan a similar lawsuit.

The local oyster farmer face ruin

The region produces oysters and shellfish, but the local economy has been decimated after all sales from the region were banned on Sunday.

Last week the public prosecutor's office in Brest opened a criminal inquiry into who was responsible for the sinking, in response to a request by President Jacques Chirac.

Portugal hit

Now Portugal may be under threat from the slick too.

Oil was detected near Esposende, a fishing town located some 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Lisbon.

The oil is now undergoing tests to see if it does come from the Prestige.

The patches of oil along a four-kilometre stretch of beach are around 10 centimetres (four inches) and a clean-up operation is underway.

Previous Portugal has been spared the effects of the slick thanks to favourable winds blowing the oil northwards.

Some 20,000 tonnes of oil have escaped from the Liberian-registered Prestige, an ageing single-hulled tanker, which broke in two before it sank in stormy seas off the coast of Spain seven weeks ago.