France ‘stabs’ Britain over travel chaos in Dover, ‘suggests’ UK should ask EU to join Schengen area
Ferry operator DFDS told passengers there were “queues of around an hour” for French border controls and to “allow at least 120 minutes before departure to clear all controls”.
#bodover – There are queues at the entrance to the port of Dover. It currently takes around 45 – 60 minutes to clear passport control. Allow extra time on your trip if possible, and be sure that if you miss your ferry trip you will be on the next one
— P&O Ferries Updates (@POferriesupdate) July 25, 2022
P&O Ferries warned on social networking site ‘Twitter’: “Queues have increased and will take approximately one hour to clear passport control.”
Several UK officials, including Liz Truss and Jacob Rees Mock, blamed France for the delay. But François Decoster, deputy president of the Haute-de-France region, fought back, guaranteeing that “Brexit means we have to put in new restrictions.”
“I feel sorry for the families, we want to have British tourists, we want them to come easily to our beautiful places,” he pointed out: “We have some EU members who are Schengen members, why don’t we? Explore this idea?” And: “Next weekend will be the busiest weekend of the year, and this situation will never happen again. Seeing those scenes, I was reminded of having to cross the border between Hungary and Romania in 1992. 30 years ago, before those countries joined the European Union. In Europe I assume that such pictures are not of this period but of an ancient era.
“I regret that we have to use passports again. It’s something that needs to be abolished. I don’t call that progress. It’s the opposite of progress. We don’t want this for Europe. We want to see freedom of movement. Unfortunately, we need more restrictions,” he concluded, according to the British tabloid ‘ He spoke to Mail Online’.
