January 13th - France Is Open, But There's Much To Consider
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
France has lifted the travel restrictions for UK travellers as Omicron waves come and go. Hurrah! I hear you shout. But before you dash off to the Eurostar terminal there's still plenty to consider in regards to what you need to have to be able to travel without hassle.
PCRs, LFTs and points of entry will all be discussed as I find my way to France when the travel ban is lifted, which is some time on Friday 14th January (they've not actually said when yet.)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest |
| 0:07.2 | news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape, or actually, like me, almost on |
| 0:13.6 | your way out of the door. That's because since I spoke to you yesterday, France has very |
| 0:19.6 | suddenly said that the frontiers will open to British |
| 0:22.8 | travellers tomorrow. That's Friday the 14th of January. The only problem is we have no idea when. |
| 0:32.0 | Well, actually, there's quite a lot of problems which I'll get to, but the main problem is we don't know when. |
| 0:37.4 | So I'm in the ridiculous |
| 0:38.6 | position of first of all thinking I know what I'll do I'll fly to Basel in Switzerland and then |
| 0:46.5 | I'll be in position to walk across the border in the morning when the frontier is probably open |
| 0:52.4 | but then I discovered that I would need to have |
| 0:54.9 | permission to enter France just to fly to Basel Airport, because although it's sort of Swiss, |
| 1:00.6 | it's within French territory. So I am now in contact with both DFTES to see if I can get |
| 1:07.9 | on the 11 o'clock ferry out of New Haven to go to a lovely Diep in Normandy |
| 1:15.1 | or with Britisheney ferries to see if I can be on the I think it's 1035 from Portsmouth to |
| 1:22.6 | Sherbourg in France. I really don't mind which I just don don't know that what will happen. And I've just |
| 1:29.9 | actually been told, as far as we know, D.F. is still on old rules. So they turn you back. |
| 1:36.2 | Trying to get clarity. That's from one of the very many people who are kindly helping me. |
| 1:42.7 | It's an absolute mess. Now, I absolutely agree that I am in an unusual position of |
| 1:47.8 | just wanting to get to France, being unable to do so. Everybody else is taking a slightly |
| 1:53.7 | longer view and I'm just going to spin through what the rules are. So you need to be fully vaccinated. And that for the purposes of getting in |
| 2:04.8 | just means double jabbed with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna. You can very easily, if you've got |
| 2:10.9 | those jabs showing on your NHS app, you can upload them to the Tu-Zonti-COVID app. That's T-O-U-S-A-N-T-I-C-V-E-O-1 word. That will get you into France once you've filled in the |
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