UKH

The delays at Dover have been well documented in the media, but putting this down to improved security following from Nice is a bit of red herring. Yesterday morning we presented our 4 passports and the official had a cursory glance at the top photo and that was it. No scanning each and every passport and matching up the photos to the actual people like the UK Border Force doeach and every time we re-enter the UK at Calais. So how about the other two times I crossed the French border yesterday? France - Belgium near Lille, I passed the frontier at about 110 kph, no border officials on either side. Luxembourg - France near Thionville, I passed the frontier at about 70 kph (there was lots of traffic congestion), again no border officials on either side. It will be interesting to see what measures are in place when I cross into Germany later this week.


I have drawn three conclusions from this:

A. The French know something we don't about the risk posed by UK holiday makers.

B. The extra "security measures" are more to do with the French authorities putting two fingers up at the Brexit vote.

C. There is another much more logical reason (to the Gallic mind), but I'm not sure what it is and I'm open to suggestions.


My (French) wife is fairly sure that it is option B.

In reply to Bingers:


Yes, your white.

In reply to Bingers:
There were big queues a month ago on the French/Swiss border, so it isn't just a uk thing. I think the French are entitled to be as strict as they like, they've had a couple of horrible atrocities and its understandable

In reply to toad:

also long queues at passport control in Lyon airport when arriving from Spain so I don't think its just a British thing.

In reply to Bingers:


>> C. There is another much more logical reason (to the Gallic mind), but I'm not sure what it is and I'm open to suggestions.

Been struggling myself to comprehend the logic behind the targeting of the increased border control, but the border at Geneva at times has been a complete nightmare, but at the same time, there are lots of unmanned border crossing that you can use as an alternative.
The Italian side of the Mont Blanc tunnel is another nightmare with French police demanding passports & vehicle searches on a whole sale basis.
Seems to my uneducated mind that the man power & resources being used would be better spent on better intelligence & monitoring of suspects as surely the problem is already in country?

In reply to walts4:
I used to be a frontelier and crossed the border at the Gaillard crossing twice a day - the crossing was never an issue apart from congestion. Mrs C used to get stopped because she had the dog in the back and they wanted to pat his head (seriously!).

I also used to use a crossing at Veigy Foncenex - which as you say is an unmanned border - they do however have the "flying Douanes" who set up random checks.

In reply to Bingers:

I live in France and fly in and out usually for business every couple of weeks.

Full passport checks have been reintroduced even for flights in the Schengen area, which is a ballache but understandable under the current circumstances.

However, at least until recently France was the most visited country in the world and I think it would be physically impossible to check every single entry. So you would expect a bit of intelligence-led checks or just a bit of common sense to determine where to put resources.

In reply to Bingers:

That's perfectly normal, ever heard about Schengen ? They did add some spot checking since all the terrorist attacks, but it would be virtually impossible to have a border between for example France / Belgium / Germany nowadays, given there are thousands of roads and hundred of dense urban areas right over the border.

In reply to Bingers:





Sorry but option B is just conspiracy theory. What about common sense option D: Border staff is in short supply because they have bigger problems to deal with at the moment than British holidaymakers being slightly frustrated.

In reply to Bingers:

It's not just the French. Two weeks ago I flew into Zimbabwe. We were the only flight landing at the airport that day and it took over 3 hours to process the 100 odd passengers through the border control with just 2 immigration officers working.

In reply to Bingers:

My survey into French border crossings continues. France - Germany near Mulheim, nothing. France - Switzerland near Basle/Bale, nothing. According to my brother in law (who uses the crossing up to four times per week), this crossing is most likely to attract additional border staff on a Sunday because they get paid more, but they do the same amount of work, which is nothing.

So of the 5 border crossing visited, the only one with any checks made was the UK one. All but the France - German one were principle border crossings but there aren't exactly a lot of crossings to man over the Rhine. The conclusion is still that the additional checks were down to political posturing rather than any real security concern.

In reply to Bingers:

C. There is another much more logical reason (to the Gallic mind), but I'm not sure what it is and I'm open to suggestions.

I'm sorry but the words "logical" and "Gallic Mind" do not belong in the same sentence.

I say this as somebody who loves France and spends lots of time there.

In reply to RomTheBear:


They do, but that's a pompous thing to say. Their problems don't stem from British holiday makers so why create one? Border staff is in short supply?? Where are they then? What non Schengen borders are there apart from Switzerland? Waves of terrorists lined up on the Swiss border are there? What nonsense.

In reply to Trangia:

Russia appears not a second faster

In reply to Bingers:

Isn't it just that, in response to a problem that the border guards have literally no control over, that of home-grown radicals, they are under pressure to look busy? And what better method than to pile the queue up on British soil?