David Lock

We have all heard about mostly British families being held up for many hours as Froggie customs are on a sort of work to rule double checking documentation causing enormous delays. Of course the British visitors are going to spend in France and help their struggling economy.
The reason for this is given as tighter security following the Nice deaths but the obvious irony being that terrorists are far more likely to either live in France or just drive from others countries as there are no borders. I would guess the British terrorists are unlikely to travel to France to carry on with their killings.
Yet another result of UK's EXIT vote


David

Felix.

Hows this a result of Brexit? - We are still in the EU and haven't Brexited yet!

David Lock

'Cos the French just want to put the boot in. dl

Felix.

Who wants to go to France in any case?

hodgy0_2

Quite a few, France has more international tourism than any other country

By a wide margin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

jayallen

iTrader: (31)

Eeeerrrrr me.....We're heading out on the 6th of August. I'm guessing the sheer volume of people is just down to the end of school term.

dpb

yes . They hardly need us !

Shane

iTrader: (6)

Just unlucky with the timing really, higher security just as the peak travel period starts. You can hardly blame the French for being extra vigilant in light of the recent attacks. It's a tough job to monitor their borders given how many entry and exit points they have so they're going to be stretched very thin.
Don't blame the French for being vigilant, blame those that have caused this.

dpb

back we go to Hollande

David Lock

France is wonderful. Some great beaches, sexy girls, super food and wine with a warm eccentricity in society. Paris is fun too. Just need to avoid the odd SN member who may have settled there


Some of them can even speak English!


Blackpool or Nice - a tough choice


David

andy97

iTrader: (1)

I only go-to France to get to Germany or any other country. Buy fuel in the UK and Belgium. Don't spend money in France.

Felix.

Better head out there on the 3rd August by the looks of things - and take a few crosswords

dpb

I imagine they'll be a number of choice cross words

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

If you're cutting across Europe to Germany, wouldn't Luxemburg be the country of choice for a fill-up?

legb4rsk

Petty minded bureaucrats run France!! For example,they are trying to ban all pre 1997 cars from Paris.Probably some emissions regulation which is nonsense.Any car still running after 20 years is pretty green in my book.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

And what if the boot was on the other foot and we were stopping Terry and His Wrists from entering the UK?

When we exit the EU this may become normal business.

dpb

Yeah , thank goodness we left EU eh and nobody has authorita over inner city air pollution

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Climate Control is an international effort, not just the EU

Irrelevant post of the day though, keep up the bong drills mate

dpb

We didn't bother with the rules anyway... Haha

andy97

iTrader: (1)

If I was going to southern Germany I would still enter Belgium and proabably pass near of through Luxembourg. Luxembourg is just too far east other wise. Its only a few miles to reach Belgium from Calais.

If this is going to be a regular problem I will switch to crossing to the ferries to Holland and Belgium or fly to near point of destination and hire car

hodgy0_2

I suspect (and hope) I won't be quite this bad

but sure, the days of simply booking the tunnel/ferry and driving through Europe as if it was just another part of the UK look like they might be over

David Lock

As a temporary solution for the summer why can't UK set up an adequately staffed customs check at Dover with some invited French officials overseeing things. So British holiday makers can be cleared to board the ferries and no need for any more checks in France. Any dodgy looking visitors without UK passports can be handled by French officials. I guess that one problem could be that we don't have enough trained customs officials to do this. So give some bright uni students a summer job with a modicum of on-the-job training, it can't be that bloody difficult.


My other thought was that regular travellers could be pre-vetted and given special passports with retina recognition or some fancy security device and could be let through immediately if passport matched the human.


I don't travel any more but if I did I would be pretty pissed off if I had to sit for hours on a motorway because of French jobsworths.


David

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

1. The agreement of having British Customs in France allows the Jungle in Calais to exist - do we want the Jungle in Dover?
But are some of the tourists just British holiday makers or people going off as a family to be radicalised? France does not want untrained staff handling people going into their country.
But wait!!!!! To the rescue comes the great, highly educated, hippy, drippy, free love, "Vote To Stay", Corbyn loving types that hate any kind of restriction on free movement - bonus.

2. Regular travellers will understand that any threat needs to be countered. This is just an example of what awaits us, higher travel and vehicle insurance, longer waits at customs, shouting louder at our foreign chums to make them understand will not work soon.

Suck it up people.

SWRTWannabe

Slightly different, but when a transatlantic crossing takes 9 hours or so, why don't they do all the immigration checks on the flight, meaning we don't have a two hour queue on arrival to the US.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Because they don't trust foreign customs - simple.

dpb

As long as never been in the same town as a commie/muslim/Frenchman/Mexican/German its all good

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

And breath out.

David Lock

Slightly higher security risk plus airline would have to pick up the tab for any refused entry (or chuck them out of the back door).


David

steve05wrx

Hi,
If you travel to USA from Abu Dhabi - you do all the border formalities in Abu Dhabi - before getting on the flight!
Cheers
Steve