Colun, you pass through French customs and security in Dover and English custome etc. In Calais.
This is a reciprocal agreement and nothing to do with the EU.
The English Border Agency was brought in to help out at French customs.
Terry this is a situation caused by the heightened sense of security and only one booth being manned by French customs on Friday night.
Twelve thousand reservists being called up is for show and to be seen to be doing something, not effective co-operation between security services and ibtelligence led investigations.
Joe public is always the unwitting victim in these situations. Do they really think that the British family, granny and kids are a danger to France?
Shelley, if you think that twelve hours marooned on a motorway with the kids in the back and no facilities is just rather a long wait, I must beg to differ.
The main point of my argument is that if the French think it is ok to treat their tourists as they have been doing, it is more than likely thst those same tourists will be holidaying in UK next year.
Caz, perhaps some if those people were warned of delays but the situation became worse and it was too late as they were already stuck on the motorway with no possibility of getting off.
Also the name of this Forum is Survive France and this sort of treatment of tourists will make it more difficult for some to do just that.
Anna, you can't help but wonder if those smug b------s are not running a book on how many miss their connection. All for their own good of course.
Shades of 1984.
Hans, I am sorry that you had such an appalling wait to enter UK. Not acceptable.
The wait was at Stansted, Jane.
That was unacceptable too. Cost cutting at every level.
Yes, and if you are undertaking à long car journey in summer, especially with children or oldies or animals, and you aren't à complete idiot you take food water loo roll etc ie contingency stuff, and plenty of it, with you. I'm saying this as someone who has to drive 1000+ km with 5 children every time I want to see my family.
When I travel by car ( and I will be at the end of my working season....mid Sept....to France/Basque
by the way....because I like France and her people!
I carry lots of chilled mineral water in a cold box, wet wipes, some fruits and simple easy to eat
things, paper towel.......but not a portable loo!
I am sure many people are prepared for mishaps on long journeys but certain things happen
in natural life which require a visit to a toilet.
I am with Jane all the way and could not shout it louder.....France really needs it's tourism....
It affects all of us;
My clients all spend several thousand euros per group from the moment they set foot on
French soil till they get back to UK. Think of how many gites and b and Bs are filled each
season and work out some sums. Yes it will pay a lot of wages!
I think the long queues at the start of the UK holidays should have been foreseen and planned for, but if I were working for French or UK border force and knew that too few staff had been taken on, checked out and trained over many months, I don't think I'd be rushing myself off my feet: I know how hard they work already, and rushing can be very risky to security. I see that Heathrow had to take staff from the Channel ports the other day, which doesn't help.
I lived in London during the Irish troubles so none of the consequences of terrorism surprise me. We take the precaution of staying in a hotel near Calais after driving through France, so if we are held up there it is after we have had a good night's sleep. On the other side of the channel, we only live in South London and if there are queues we have friends near the A2, but if we are in the middle of a queue for hours it can be difficult to get out of it and return home. Maybe that was where things went wrong, and cars should have been directed to leave the motorway or not enter it in the first place. UK Police rarely close motorway slip roads: I believe they prefer to have cars parked in all lanes rather than clogging up the surrounding area. Here in France the A40 access road is sometimes closed to stop blockages developing on the autoroute.
Hopefully by the time we drive to the UK in August and back in September the queues will have cleared!
LOL yes, quite. It was the smugness and the lack of any pretence of sympathy that was really infuriating. Plus you can't help thinking, do the Metropolitan police not consider that their colleagues in the border forces are competent to do their job? After all, everybody on our coach had been checked by both UK and French border controls in Calais just a few hours earlier.
A minor point Jane. I don't think 1.19/1.20 euros to the pound is really terrible when you a. think back to what is has been at times over the last decade (1.11 when I bought my current house!)and b.consider the trade deficit currently experienced by the British economy. The 1.35/1.30 rate reached prior to the referendum was really the result of currency speculation. As a periodic visiting holiday home owner I can live with that. For residents receiving pensions and seeking bookings it must seem problematic. I suspect the current rate is at the top end of what to expect over the next few years. But I agree, the border delays are intolerable.
True, Jane, but it's exacerbated by everyone homing in on Dover/Folkestone when there are so many other routes which could even be better depending on where they are going.
And yes, you have to suspect everyone, grannies and all.
We are UK pensioners and keep a close eye on the exchange rate. In fact we are still a lot better off now than when £1=1€ a while ago, when Brexit was a mere twinkle in Nigel's eye. imho, Brexit is a handly bandwagon to be jumped on, and the financial wide-boys were the first to do so. The BBC jumps on those guys' hard luck (though the initial slump enabled some to clean up later) and makes out it's all because everyone else voted Leave, then creates the self-fufilling prophecy that Brexit has caused a recession. Load of cobblers. Time to grow up and get on with it, I think. Doom and gloom won't help the UK or the EU. I'm more optimistic for the exchange rate: once the market sees trade discussions going on with the rest of the world and business continuing as usual, things will get back to normal for the UK. I hope the € won't suffer too long but that is more up to the Commissioners and Greece than to the UK.
Hear, hear, Diana......
The financial 'wide boys' and the politicians with vested interests who see a vanishing 'gravy train'....
Security checks are there for traveller's safety. People complain at airports about the need to remove clothing, shoes etc and having their bags searched, long queues at immigration and passport control but surely if it stops someone boarding an aircraft and blowing it out of the sky - it is worth it. By the same token, it amazed me for years when boarding cross channel ferries, that more thorough searches and checks were not being made on vehicles and passengers. However, over the last few years, the searches and checking procedures have been increased, opening of top boxes on cars, looking in cupboards and lockers in campervans and caravans, mirror checks underneath vehicles. Why would you complain about this? It only needs one explosive device on a ferry to send it to the bottom of the seas. France is currently on high security alert again post Nice and the President warned that border controls would be tightened up. Yes, it is inconvenient for all the people trying to cross from Dover to Calais waiting for hours, but don't blame the Border Control Agencies in UK, or in France they are doing their job to keep people safe! If anyone should shoulder the blame, it is the respective Governments, who cut staff to save money, without thinking of the consequences. Also, travelling is all about planning, food, drinks, toilet rolls, wet wipes for the journey are just as important as the beachwear and the suntan lotion. I have little sympathy for the people who were complaining that nobody was providing them with food.
Overkill. Bring in the homicide detectives as well.
As far as I know no elderly Quaker ladies have been implicated in terrorism. Thst doesn't stop them from treating you like a piece of meat though.
A friend of mine was actually assaulted by a butch security guard in Holland whilst she 'patted her down'.
Richard you say it all when you admit to being a periodic holiday home owner.
For those of us who rely on our pension income for our annual living expenses I can assure you that it is a major point.
You work hard all year. All you have to look forward to is your summer holidays. If you have kids, you are forced, by law, to take these holidays out of term time - at a ridiculously expensive cost. Are any of you really suggesting that holiday makers should then be prepared for a 15 hour wait on the motorway? What should they do - bring their own toilet with them? Or, if you live in the southeast, drive 300 miles north to the ferry port at Hull in order to avoid Dover?
It doesn't matter which agency (or Government) was at fault - but it certainly isn't the fault of the holidaymaker. Despite the current heavy security checks - which only an idiot would disagree with - are some people here really suggesting that it is good enough for the French authorities to provide 1 member of customs staff (or 3.. or 7) for hundreds of thousands of travellers? Is it beyond travellers expectations to assume that the British border security force could have foresaw this bottleneck and prepared for it?
I've read some drivel in my time, but some of the comments made on here really take the biscuit.