Our holiday to France was well worth the Covid costs and confusion

Now that holidays to France are back on and travel to other popular European destinations is looking less of a minefield, more Britons will surely be tempted to venture abroad, some for the first time since 2019.

Having recently returned from a fabulous fortnight in France, I can recommend going away to anyone still swithering over the pros and cons. It may not be quite like other years, many hassles remain; but for the determined sun seeker, it can be done.

Our party of seven travelled via as varied a range of routes as possible before gathering at our ultimate destination. So we were able to compare and contrast what turned out to be vast discrepancies in both Covid checks and post Brexit border protocol, depending on the mode of transport, carrier and crew.

A few things to bear in mind: the travel restrictions changed at least twice while we were away and have changed since we’ve got back. They may well change again, who knows.

The French also introduced UK specific rules (wonder where they got that idea from) at short notice. Needless to say, this caused massive confusion, particularly among travel operators, already struggling to keep abreast of the inconsistencies in the traffic light system.

My daughter’s boyfriend had a sticky moment with the Ryanair steward at Stansted who had not heard the latest update from the Consulate General of France, namely that the fully vaccinated no longer needed to present a test to enter France. Only after she relented and gave him his boarding pass did he suggest that someone in her position should perhaps know the rules before turning people away. That went down well.

(Top tip: if heading for an early flight from Stansted, allow more than a couple of hours to clear security and the subsequent Covid interrogation. There was little sympathy shown to late arrivals at the gate.) 

Over at the Eurotunnel, my husband and I experienced a more nonchalant approach and weren’t even asked for evidence of our vaccination status (which we’d gone to the trouble of obtaining in written format in app-less Scotland).

But we were warned, by the British official, that the French had been turning cars away the day before and we should have our compelling reason ready just in case. Ah, the compelling reason. We didn’t strictly require one, being doubled jabbed, but the unvaccinated (which includes those with just one vaccine) do.

This is the rule that almost nipped our holiday in the bud. It discriminates, like a vaccine passport, against the young who have not yet been given their second doses and would, we felt, almost certainly bar our youngest daughter’s entry into France.

How unfair was that? Her generation has forfeited the best years of university life, been denied graduations, and forbidden crucial (to them) social contact. They face uncertain futures. Could we leave her behind while we soaked up the sun?

Of course not. So back to the compelling reasons: citizen of France? No. Citizen of the EU? No. Holder of diplomatic passport? No. Foreign health professional, driver or crew member of a coach or passenger train, Channel Tunnel staff, crew member or operator of a merchant ship? Non, non, non and non.

She couldn’t even feign an excuse for a foreign language student visa. But towards the end of the improbable list was this: “a compelling professional reason under a mission order issued by their country of origin”.

As a musician, performing, say, in one of the many summer festivals, could she not be en route, if stopped, to a concert? This then was her story, a tall one to be sure, but as it happened she didn’t need it. She breezed on to the Eurostar, with her single jab and her violin, no questions asked, and made our party complete.

The most fraught part of our Channel crossings had been worrying about who would make it and who wouldn’t. But what had seemed in mid-July a reckless gamble proved relatively straightforward.

Once there, everything was tranquil. It could have been 2019, or even 2020 when pre-vaccinated tourists encountered far fewer obstacles than visitors do today. Our fellow holidaymakers were mostly French, and the Belgians, Dutch and some Germans contributed to the traffic jams on the Autoroute du Soleil. 

But the scarce Brits were welcomed just the same. The waiter in our local beach café had written on the menu blackboard: “Je suis un restaurateur… pas gendarme”. 

The news that France had been placed in an “amber plus” category, requiring us to quarantine once back home, came at the beginning of the holiday. Annoying, to say the least, especially as it became clear it was Sajid Javid’s kneejerk reaction to Beta variant transmission in Réunion, French territory 6,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean.  

But the goal had been to get to France and we were there, all of us. We had defied the doom-mongers and made our annual escape. 

Governments have terrified travellers and our decision to go to France, even before it was put on an arbitrary watch list, was made gingerly, at the eleventh hour. We have incurred costs that would break those of modest means – worse for Scots, who can only secure the obligatory day two and day eight tests on their return from one exorbitant provider. 

We all had to get a negative antigen test 48 hours before leaving France. (Don’t forget, as we did, to take your passports with you to your chosen French pharmacy.) And everyone must now fill out a Passenger Locator Form, a Brexit, not Covid measure, though these currently include Covid regulations too.

The return leg was as improvised as the journey out – the air passengers nipping through Gatwick with zero checks and e-passports; an empty Eurotunnel at Calais examining passports only; and by far the longest delays for us, disembarking from the quarter full DFDS car ferry at Newcastle.

Was the holiday worth it? You bet. Although the ever-shifting travel restrictions meant we couldn’t completely switch off, two weeks of distancing from the daily grind restored faith in a post-Covid future.

When we were saying goodbye to our patch of southern France and favourite café, the philosopher waiter had changed the blackboard message: “Imagine que tu oses et que tout se pass bien,” which I think translates as “Dare to imagine and everything will be okay”.