Hi

Just wondered how strict the border control was on taking meat into france nowadays ?
Is there lots more checking of cars and paperwork or is it back to before Brexit ?
We’re hoping to drive out for skiing next year and usually make a picnic to take ….

thanks all

I drove over a couple of weeks back, plenty of paperwork checks for Covid, tests and declarations etc but didn’t notice any increased physical vehicle checks either going or coming back.  I’d recommend uploading all of your documents to the EuroTunnel website prior to travelling, otherwise you need to show them all when checking in.

We’ve just come back, we didn’t take any of the banned foods with us but there were no checks made so we’d have been ok anyway. I think they make some random checks, but I’m not sure they’d be too worried about picnic quantities.

Thanks for the tips turboferret, we’ve both downloaded our vaccination documentation but will certainly look towards uploading before we go.

Will be very careful about what we pack but he does love a pork pie in a picnic 🙂

I’d recommend uploading all of your documents to the EuroTunnel website prior to travelling, otherwise you need to show them all when checking in.

We’re off in a few days, their website keeps saying ‘can’t connect to server’ whenever I try to upload the docs. Might be Firefox though, couldn’t pay by CC on their site and had to resort to using IE.

having driven to and from switzerland in august. i have been stopped and some checks but not checked for food. Other cars were pulled aside for more complete checks.

Just back from 3 days in the van in France. 2 observations to make:

a) It was all relatively easy.

b) What a joy to be back in France. It was lovely.

The only thing that was checked in the van was that the gas was switched off. Also had a slightly embarrassing conversation with the UK border control:

Him: Do you have any knives on board:
Me [sitting in campervan]: No
Several minutes pass as they swab a line of cars
Him: Don’t you have any cutlery on board?
Me: Oh yes, I thought you meant stabbing knives!

The other issue worth checking is that my wife’s NHS app didn’t show both vaccinations so that took a bit or sorting at the last minute. Also we had failed to upload some document or other to Eurotunnel so had to go into the building and show our “TousAntiCovid” app and APL document, but it was no biggie.(but clearly something we could have done better).

Rob