France

Current French Covid requirements for entry

1. Proof of vaccination or recent recovery from covid

I used the French ‘Tousanticovid’ app (from Google Playstore) which is like our NHS App.  This will scan the NHS Vacc or Test QR code and load the details into the app.  I scanned the paper printout of the vacc certificate from the NHS App.

The French ‘legal declaration form’ I downloaded from the French gov website linked to from our gov site travelling abroad pages; this is a form you just tick boxes in and sign to confirm that you haven’t been in contact with anyone with covid in the last period of time – think it’s 2 weeks

In the Caen port my vacc pass (I handed them the paper version) was scrutinised and compared to my passport; others travelling via Eurotunnel were simply waved through on saying they were vaccinated – I think the same for the ferry at Calais.  The border guard stamped my passport, so assume the clock is now ticking down from 180 days for this period of travel in the Schengen area.

I have put a ‘GB’ sticker on the back and done the headlight beam thing.

Re Critair sticker – I got this for my previous van but forgot for this one so will ensure I don’t drive through any cities that require it.

Proof of destination in EU and return journey to UK

I was not asked for either of these and neither were my three other relatives/friends as part of their respective journeys. As of yet I haven’t organised for any tests for returning to the UK.

My sister bought a test from the UK and brought it with her for her return journey and got it certified via video that she was the one doing it, for inputting to the Passenger Locator Form, which she said took ages to do.

Taking food into France (EU)

Despite understanding that dairy, meat, fruit and veg from the UK are not allowed into the EU, consequently giving away the contents of my fridge after the festival, but keeping my hidden UHT carton, I needn’t have bothered as no interest was shown on either side of the channel.  The same has been reported by my sister crossing by ferry from Dover.

Round & about

Mask wearing is required indoors and even requested in tourist outdoor spots like the villages on L’Il de Re.  People are compliant re indoors certainly, and 2/3 compliant outdoors when it’s requested via a sign.

Showing the vacc pass is straightforward via the French app and is scanned in every restaurant/café I’ve been into, otherwise no entry.

Infection rates in France in the area I’ve been visiting are lower than the UK and dropping, and the vacc numbers are going up.  It has become a requirement now for all health & social care workers, plus other civil servants to have at least one vacc dose.  Hospital staff suspensions due to vacc refusal have been reported today via radio news.

I have not felt concerned about Covid at all, probably due to being outdoors, levels of mask wearing, and requirement to show vacc pass.

Apart from the very obvious lack of other British vehicles and the sound of English in comparison to previous years, as well as the above, everything else is as before, and people have been very friendly. There are lots of French mhome/vans on the road, also Dutch & German, although there might be less of these – difficult to tell given where I’ve been since Il de Re.

Just 2 weeks after I wrote the post on the ferry heading for Calais, I am writing again on the ferry in the other direction, heading home early due to family illness.

In Switzerland I was hedging my onward options due to the situation – not wanting to travel further east and south – so I took the opportunity in the decision time to join my sister and her husband on a campsite at Le Lavandou on the French Mediterranean coast, where I have stayed twice before. I was able to be an extra person and vehicle on their double-sized expensive pitch – so cheap for being on a 5-star campsite in that location! – and enjoyed 3 lovely days of more Summer.

This area and the medieval town of Bormes Les Mimosas is beautiful.

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The past 3 weeks hold the record for the miles/kilometres driven, and having made the decision that I should return to the UK, I have certainly covered territory in 2 days: 9 hours driving from Le Lavandou to Beaune in Burgundy, mid-way up France, and a further 7 hour to the ferry, with cruise control all the way and Monte2 fantastic. More than 300 miles from Dover up to Lancashire.

So it’s a goodbye again as I sit at the rear of the ship and look southwards at Calais receding into the late afternoon, early Autumn sunlight. I wanted to record the really unexpected wave of sadness which swept over me earlier as the town came into view from the motorway heading to the French coast, the realisation hitting that this would probably be the last time for me before the UK leaves the EU.

I am happy to admit to the depth of this feeling – and to explain it as being like a grief for the ending of my own personal relationship with the EU – and France in particular over the years – and all its potential options that I have taken for granted as being part of my life since I started studying French and German at university in the late 70s. All this emotion found its echo coincidentally and most unexpectedly in those moments by the randomly-ordered Stevie Wonder tracks I was listening to. I did choose to ‘go with’ all the emotions and associated reflection.

My hope is that Brexit will sooner or later become in reality only a bad dream, as I thought it was when I woke up the morning after the referendum 3 years ago. I am a citizen of the UK, but will always feel that my valued citizenship of the wider European grouping known as the EU has been taken away from me on spurious grounds and on balance for no real benefit in the complex, interdependent world of now. I have much sympathy for those EU nationals who’ve been resident in countries other than their own for many years, who now feel everything’s up in the air, beyond their control, and ‘no longer wanted’,

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Came across this building – see the caption above the door – in a little Swiss hamlet near the Italian border.

I visited the WWII cemetery at Hottot-Les-Bagues to look for the grave of Captain Arthur Deakin Eteson, only son of my Mum’s aunt and uncle, who died in the Normandy landings aged 27. In looking for his grave, (before realising there is an index in each cemetery) I found myself saying thank you across each row of graves. All nationalities were represented, but most seemed to be under 25, and as young as 18. The cemetery was beautifully maintained, as are they all, and places for reflection. What tragedy – no computer game!

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