France Bans Non-Essential U.K. Visitors in Response to Omicron Spread

3 min read

From Saturday, France will prohibit all U.K. visitors travelling for non-essential reasons (unless they are French or E.U. citizens) in an attempt to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, which is quickly becoming the dominant strain within the country. The ban will apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated Brits. MailOnline has more.

The French Government said no non-essential travellers from the U.K. will be allowed in from the weekend.

It is a hammer blow to those desperately hoping to be able to get away or go skiing over the festive period. 

Ollie James said online: “Based on the latest Covid news, that’s my snow holiday cancelled because the French are banning people from the U.K.”

“Infuriating for me, but I feel for the hospitality industry in the mountains who will be losing a huge amount of money now. Our chalet was £12,000 for the week.”

A French Government spokesman confirmed there will be a “requirement to have an essential reason to travel to, or come from, the U.K., both for the unvaccinated and vaccinated”.

He added: “People cannot travel for touristic or professional reasons.”

They insisted French citizens and EU nationals could still return to France from the U.K.

Delta remains the dominant variant in France, but Omicron is spreading so fast in Britain that it’s raising concerns across the Channel.

French Government Spokesman Gabriel Attal said on BFM television that tourism or business trips from Britain to France “will be limited”, though French citizens will still be able to make the journey. 

All those arriving from Britain will need to have a negative virus test less than 24 hours old, and to test again upon arrival and isolate “in a place they choose” for at least 48 hours pending the result, Attal said.

Paul Charles, Chief Executive of Travel Consultancy the PC Agency, said: “Blanket country measures are a damaging backwards step and never work. Omicron is already in France and other EU countries.

“Why should the millions boosted be treated the same way as those unvaccinated, and prevented from entry?”

Health minister Gillian Keegan was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for her reaction to the French travel restrictions.

She said: “Well, actually, my first thought is ‘I’m glad that I cancelled my trip to France’, because that’s where I was supposed to go for Christmas.”

“But, of course, every Government is dealing with Omicron, every Government has to make their decisions and has their response to it, you know. It is obviously going to alter people’s plans, which is very unfortunate.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he has spoken to his equivalent in the French government, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, and agreed that hauliers will be exempt from the new restrictions.

A Spokesman for ferry operator Brittany Ferries said: ‘These new measures are a hammer blow to our Christmas season.”

Worth reading in full.

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173 Comments
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Newman20
Newman20
4 years ago

Just as well France didn’t ban foreign visitors in 1944!!

Martin Frost
Martin Frost
4 years ago

A reminder that this is a global panicdemic. The French have been world leaders in futile policy responses. Of course ruining a lot of Brits holiday plans plays well to a certain type of French voter. Worth pointing out though that we imposed similar measures on the Swedes where Covid deaths are now in free fall.

SimCS
SimCS
4 years ago

“The ban will apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated Brits.” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

Moreover, how do they know all these UK cases are Omicron? The LFT tests cannot tell, so are they just making the assumption?

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  SimCS

Moronic is a deemed outcome from PCR tests. There is a full match against the 3 supposed defining segments (SAR-CoV-2), match against 2 (deemed moronic), match 1 try again, or match 0, try again.

The whole process is designed to give ‘evidence’ of SARS-CoV-2 or moronic. No other outcome is acceptable to TPTB.

crisisgarden
crisisgarden
4 years ago

Distinctly remember being laughed at when I said to friends in early 2020 that travel as we knew it was over…

Dodgy Geezer
Dodgy Geezer
4 years ago

They would prefer to keep the more dangerous variant for as long as possible?

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer

Under normal genetic selection process, diseases become weaker to adapt to the host. Symbiosis is the ultimate genetic outcome. Even stable DNA bacterial diseases such as syphilis, TB and leprosy appear to have weakened over time (many 100s of years).

If a deadly SARS-CoV-2 ‘variant’ suddenly appears, that is the result of non-natural genetic processes – for example weaponisation or the arising from the equivalent of indiscriminate antibiotic use on bacteria.

peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

Late commenting on this because I was waiting for the official French government version rather than leaks. It means a lot to me as 2 children due to join from the UK for Christmas.
The wording is still open to interpretation as far as I am concerned. The strict legal interpretation is that only ‘dependendent’ children ie under 21 are viewed as immediate family, so my two would not qualify and not be allowed to enter France. The more liberal view is that immediate family includes offspring of any age and would be allowed.
Which means the worst of all worlds where they troop into Heathrow and find out if firstly over-fussy check in staff of BA think they are OK and then the guy on immigration at Toulouse agrees or not.
Its a bloody nightmare and disgrace and has absolutely nothing to do with ‘health’ but everything to do with ‘well you wanted brexit, so now you’ve got it’ as part of Macron’s electioneering and Johnson’s complete bafoonery.
I suspect for my wife this will be the final straw. If they can’t get in we will leave France sooner rather than later.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

I’m so sorry to hear this Peyrole. I am keeping my fingers crossed that your kids get to join you – report back and let us know what happened.

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago

Non-essential = not signed up to the WEF, not government, not fabulously wealthy or a friend of the aforementioned.

bringbacksanity
bringbacksanity
4 years ago

Has anyone asked why the U.K. has so much of the current wave ?

I mean no one else is hitting these numbers. No one else seems especially worried. What was the flaw ? The world class Trap and Trace, the world class vaccination programme. The world class variant sequencing, the fantastic public effort. What was it that caused this ? Lack of masks ? ( Ho Ho Ho ). Was it the unvaccinated 5 % / 10 % / 15 % / 20 % (please delete as necessary)

LonePatriot
LonePatriot
4 years ago

There is an ivermectin panic on the big tech and MSM right now. Massive articles from MSM on Ivermectin trying to push a danger narrative and also negative press on Americans Frontline Dr’s, again, to keep the Covid narrative alive. Just go to the Goog and type ivermectin then look at all the panic news articles. We are over the target. Big-Pharma is panicking. This medicine has been widely used by humans without any problems for 40 years. It’s inventor won a Nobel Prize after 20 years of successful use and after 100 million people were cured of a broad spectrum of problems without any side effects. Get your Ivermectin while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  LonePatriot

Ivermectin, used off-label, had legal priority over untested experimental drugs. In the US, the mRNA drugs were allowed to be used under ‘vaccine’ route raher than the more stringently controlled ‘genetic therapy’ route.

That is all you need to know.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

Can’t believe the cabinet actually want to look like losers, first the highest covid count, then the backslapping jab rollout, now the highest ‘variant’ count. At no time have they looked like they have a handle on anything

George L
George L
4 years ago

Well.. as someone who’s resident in France but currently in YUK, I’m entitled to return, but I’m not prepared to jump through the hoops or tolerate the pathetic ‘health pass’ currently in force there.

As a gigging musician, one of my delights was playing the local bars of an evening. Not possible now if you haven’t taken the poison. That’s what’s in store for YUK if TPTB get their way.. and more..

baboon
baboon
4 years ago

A French Government spokesman confirmed there will be a “requirement to have an essential reason to travel to, or come from, the U.K., both for the unvaccinated and vaccinated”.

Anyone who believes anything about the narrative at this point is lost forever. Good thing the UK turned the NHS into the National Booster Service – safe and effective!

George L
George L
4 years ago
Reply to  baboon

That diktat has been in force for some time actually in various guises. Only recently have the jabbed been spared the inconvenience, for the ‘clean’ its been like that for nearly 9 months..

PatrickF
PatrickF
4 years ago

Omicron, le virus Anglais? Non. Le virus mondial.

BJs Brain is Missing
BJs Brain is Missing
4 years ago

I give this whole criminal charade another month or so, and then POP!

Star
Star
4 years ago

Rishi Sunak has been to California to discuss with “business leaders” about “omicron and the economy”.

Did Denis Healey even go to the IMF HQ in Washington DC in 1976?

This smells like biiig trouble. Tomorrow I will add to my “prepper” food store.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

So the fully jabbed British are an infection risk. How does that fit with the French ‘vaccine passport’ policy?

‘Vaccinated’ French person not a risk

‘Vaccinated’ boeuf muncher is a risk

Bit racist old chap

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B
Annie
Annie
4 years ago

Only a British zombie would want to go to the French hell as a tourist, anyway. I’m sorry for people aith fam i,y there though. Of course it’s pure spite and ratty anglophobia.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

I’ll bet the residents of this part of “france” aren’t happy with Macron Le Grinch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haute-Savoie

Note how close the flag is to Switzerland. No coincidence either.

I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
4 years ago

Leading by example ….

FGt6UXAXMAEamwb.jpg
Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Just like the Met Police officers all sitting in their vans without face masks, caught on film. Ready to dish out fines to anyone sitting on a park bench without a face mask. Anyone remember Cressida Dick on Westminster Bridge with no face mask on?

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Nice of the blokleiters to bunch together like that.

NEar railings as well

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

The rules don’t apply to them as they are anti-social.

I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
4 years ago

….

Screenshot 2021-12-16 at 15-54-27 Right Said Fred ( TheFreds) Twitter.png
APC
APC
4 years ago

I’ve just lost thousands of £ – accommodation, flights, transport, testing, New Year’s Eve dinner. Was due to fly to France on 27/12. I knew I was taking some risk when I booked several months ago but didn’t really think that after 2 years of this bullshit, we’d still be shitting ourselves and hiding under the bed. Zoe apps Tim Spector says today that both delta and omicron present largely as colds. A fucking cold!!! I saw a former of thatchers cabinet being interviewed yesterday and he hit the nail on the head. The current crop of politicians dealing with this “crisis” are simply out of their depth. No ability to deal with complex issues and do the first thing that comes into their heads. Scared witless by one track technocrats with no mandate, accountability or wisdom.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago
Reply to  APC

Scared witless, Or bought

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

You’re being a little unfair, he’s got priorities & other people to think about, not just peoples Christmas holidays.

Pfizer shareholders, Moderna shareholder, Astrazenica, & Gavi, shareholders and many billionaires depend on him to double their wealth, so stop being so selfish.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

forgive me

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

If we could wave him goodbye, his final point would certainly be true!

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Is that when the experiment ends ie when they stop selling at cost

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Sounds like they’ve got more waves planned than Mexico.

George L
George L
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Its scheduled to end on 31st March 2025. That’s what the World Banks documents said anyway.. see below..

Screenshot_2020-09-07 World Bank Document Lists COVID-19 Program Ending in March 2025.PNG
hadenoughcrap
hadenoughcrap
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Funny that, the current jabs are still in stage 3 safety trials which finish April 2023. Approval means they loose their legal indemnity. I wonder if they will disappear. To be replaced by another load of legal immunity experimental jabs

Annie
Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  APC

You’ll get your money back surely?

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  APC

The Ambassador at the French Embassy says sorry, and if you’d be kind to call round in person, he’ll refund your losses.

silverbirch
silverbirch
4 years ago
Reply to  APC

I saw a good friend on Sunday. Her daughter’s whole family have the virus. The 4 year old thought she felt cold for a day, the eight year old was feeling ‘funny’ for two days and the mother had no symptoms. That was because she had her booster the week before. Thank God said my friend. My best friend texted me yesterday after Dear Leader spoke to say she was terrified I was going to die because I am not vax’d.
That is what we are up against, as you say, over a cold

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  APC

If that is the case I have had Omicron on an on and off basis for about the last 6 weeks or so

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago

LBC caller claiming to be stepson of the UK’s ‘first Omicron victim’ says he was an unvaccinated conspiracy theorist, in his 70s, who was fit and healthy and never left the house but died on Monday at a hospital in Northampton weeks after falling ill

  • Expert said the lack of details about the first Omicron death may have been causing ‘unnecessary alarm’ 
  • LBC caller, John from Smithfield, reveals that his stepfather died in hospital in Northampton on Monday
  • Unnamed victim was unvaccinated having become convinced that the vaccine was a Government conspiracy
  • John said: ‘He was an intelligent man. Had he been vaccinated, he would probably still be here’

Oh fuck off! Is it no wonder nobody trusts the MSM.

‘He was a recluse to be honest. He never left the house, had all his food delivered and only left the house to go to the bins and the postbox. He was one of the cleanest guys I’d ever known’, John said.

At least it proves lockdowns don’t work.

Star
Star
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

He never left the house and he was healthy? What did he do, get fresh air pumped in and run around his living room for exercise?

How did LBC check the caller was telling the truth? Did they meet him an underground car park?

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

Who knows, but it destroys any case for vax passes.

steve_z
steve_z
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

“He was an intelligent man” , fit and healthy.

But he never left the house? Why not? mentally ill?

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Why is it, after nearly 2 years of plastering names with faces all over every media site you can think of, suddenly everyone’s shy about a single covid victims identity?

Star
Star
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

The Daily Mail are appealing for emails:

“Do you know the man who died with Omicron in Northampton?
Email [email protected] or [email protected]“

Age 70-74. Died in hospital, Monday 13 December, Northampton.

There will be more to this story. There’s no good reason to keep his name secret.

comment image

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

I’m disappointed with DM’s investigative journalism, why don’t they just contact 77th brigade direct for more details.

twinkytwonk
twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

terrifying!!

Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

“There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”

voldemort2'.jpeg
George L
George L
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

WTF..!!!!!

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

‘Fit and healthy.’ That sort of observation is usually suspect – the number of times over the past 20 months it’s been used about a person who died ‘of’ Covid, but further details then reveal the person had had a heart attack 2 years earlier and was significantly overweight, etc!

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

unjabbed but paranoid about the risk of going outside.

PULLTHEOTHERONE.

silverbirch
silverbirch
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

But Dear Leader told us it was one death with Omicron. Now the relative is rolled out to say because of it. Average UK natural death rate 11k per week.

Star
Star
4 years ago

Alex “Boris” Johnson won’t need to be exiled anywhere. He is a 17 stone drug addict and drunkard and if he got a bad dose of the flu it would probably kill him.

His hero is the Roman emperor Augustus…..who was fatally fed poisoned figs by his third wife. What a carrie-on! Fig pudding for Christmas, Alex, darling?

Annie
Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

That was Claudius, not Augustus.

Star
Star
4 years ago

How many British citizens from Northern Ireland haven’t applied for their Irish (and therefore EU) passports yet? Regardless of their preferred status for the territory, I’d advise them to apply ASAP.

Dave Bollocks
Dave Bollocks
4 years ago

Weird how all of a sudden they can control their borders.

Rogerborg
Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Dave Bollocks

Just one of them, one way.

jeepybee
jeepybee
4 years ago

What makes this hilarious is that Moronic isn’t “spreading so fast” as to be a concern…

It’s appearing to spread fast because PanicTesting™ is forcing every fucker and his mum to use a test. We’ve been one of the highest testing nations per head of cattle in Europe before, what’re the odds they’re doing it again?

What makes it even more hilarious, is imagining Susan and Keith, all masked up and triple-tapped ready to go to their Chateau de famille Smith, only to find that they no longer can.

Julian
Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  jeepybee

There was a big jump in “cases” yesterday but sadly no figures on numbers of tests so cannot determine the % positive, but in general yes it’s probably more an artefact of number of tests – it has been the case from the start that using any raw numbers for “cases” is nonsense.

Rogerborg
Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Recall, from Sceptics passim:

  • Lateral flow is a literal coin flip.
  • PCR is explicitly unfit for yes/no testing.
  • 45 cycles is ludicrously high, and we’ve never dropped our amplification, despite even the WHO calling foul on anything over 30.
  • It’s a non-specific test for a bioweapon from 2019, not it’s great-great-great-great-to-the-nth variant. It’s entirely possible that it’s amplifying whatever’s in omigod to the moon and pronouncing certain death based on the tiniest fragments.
Julian
Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Yes, like almost all covid related data – so duff as to be useless

jeepybee
jeepybee
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Exactly. I recall looking up how the NHS defined “cases”, and it was along the lines of “a case is a report of symptoms. Does not require clinical observation. Does not require a positive test result”, or words to that effect. From that, I took it to mean that a “case” is someone who decided to ring up 111 and report a headache.

Even if they defined a case as needing a positive test result I’d have a bit more respect for their purpose. And that’s knowing how shite the PCR tests are!

Seems to me like the entire charade is propped up entirely by duff data, intentionally conflated to look spooky. Worked, too…

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

but our lives and everyone else’s are being completely trashed by that unreliable useless data

George L
George L
4 years ago
Reply to  Milo

Our lives are being trashed ‘deliberately’ by lies..it matters not if its data, or fabricated events.. the results are the same..

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Geez – are they really still using 45 cycles on asymptomatic healthy people? I can sort of understand that as a final test in a suit of clinical tests for symptomatic hospitalised people to try to be certain that thing is gone (ignoring the viable versus unviable issue). But on healthy asymptomatic people? Blatant in your face fakery.

JayBee
JayBee
4 years ago

Paul Charles, Chief Executive of Travel Consultancy the PC Agency, said: “Blanket country measures are a damaging backwards step and never work. Omicron is already in France and other EU countries.

“Why should the millions boosted be treated the same way as those unvaccinated, and prevented from entry?”

Because it’s the only thing that actually makes sense and is not discriminatory, you effin selfish moron.

Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
4 years ago

Mach Macron Makes Move on O-Microbe

stanley_plank
stanley_plank
4 years ago

The fact that they are releasing news that it more than likely came from a lab, admitting that the vaccine doesn’t work and panicking about new variants suggests to me……they think ultimately this virus could mutate like a bio weapon would.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

Some sort of disaster out in the Channel, look what the French have done!

steve_z
steve_z
4 years ago

I wonder if Whitty will become the first ever man to drown in is own bed

George L
George L
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

He will if we can get some Remdesivir down his neck..

twinkytwonk
twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

we can but hope

hadenoughcrap
hadenoughcrap
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

Didn’t he get £30 million from the B&M Foundation for research into a malaria.

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