UKC

I've heard a rumour that one of Macron's latest ideas to combat illegal immigrants is to make it an offence to enter France other than by an officially manned border post.

Obviously this could have serious consequences for walkers, climbers and mountaineers in areas such as the Alps and Pyrenees. Just wondering if anyone else, especially the UKCers living in France have heard anything about it.

I've not heard of this and it would be difficult to put into practice, as even putting aside footpaths, etc,  there are innumerable small roads crossing the frontiers which would either need manning or closing.

Given that they are members of shengan so they're is no passport control on the borders with most of their neighbours, how will they know if you crossed into the country by an official route or not? 

What they need is a wall. A big, big beautiful wall - paid for by the Spanish, the Italians, the Swiss and the Germans...

Thanks for the comment. There was something in The Times about it recently but I couln't read beyond the first paragraph on line.

What it seemed to say was that  entry inti France other than at manned posts would be punishable by a hefty fine and twelve month imprisonment.

Yes, good point. Until I went to Geneva/Chamonix last year I didn't realise how little formality there is on the France/Swiss border.

For once I found myself enjoying your sarcasm

Is not chance that most Borders run along clearly defined natural features, the mountains themselves act as a natural wall. Unfortunatly these days  Mountaineers see them as a challenge to conquer rather than a border to be respected. 

He announced a bill to limit illegal immigration last week so my guess would be that it applies to people crossing the border illegally.  I.e. if you have a schengen passport, no problem. If you have visa-free travel to France also no problem. 

I think this has been brought to a head by the steady stream of these poor people coming over the col de l'Echelle (and probably others) and into the Nevache valley. Winter reduced the numbers but didn't seem to stop them, with the result that some of them have arrived in France in a very bad state - in general they are ill equipped, the tv reports I've seen show that most don't even have gloves. Luckily a band of good samaritans from Briançon have been going out and rescuing them and taking them to a centre in Briançon and looking after them. Sadly some of these do gooders have found themselves in trouble with the police... Apparently now it's an offence to pick up any of these people in your car. Can you imagine driving past someone who is clearly in distress without helping? I can't. Apparently the residents of Nevache are beginning to wonder how many they are going to find when the snow melts..

And the Andorrans, don't forget Andorra, or the Belgians & Luxembourgers

I nearly mentioned the Col de l'Echelle - I was in Névache over the New Year break & skied up to the col one morning - lots of graffiti on the roadsigns along the lines of 'bienvue en France'. The owners of the gite we stayed in were very sympathetic to the plight of the refugees (as they saw them) and it seems that there were (are?) informal groups in the village helping them.

Wonder how it will affect us post-Brexit

It’s  hard to imagine Britain having anything but visa-free travel to France so probably not at all. 

Fingers crossed then

Yes, Hilary was at the Gite la Découverte at the end of January and that was the story she got.

That won't help much. What you really need is to Get Behind it, then it's bound to be a success.

That's the point of the rumoured law, they wouldn't need to know, if you are a non-EU citizen or without a Schengen visa, and you are in the country, and there is no record of yourself having entered the country, because you've not declared your presence upon entrance at a border post, then that it itself would constitute an offence.

I guess the idea of this is to incite asylum seekers to declare themselves when they enter.

As for British tourists after Brexit willing to travel across the EU for less than 90 days, I suspect there will be an ESTA type system and you would have to declare in advance which countries you which to visit.
Longer than 90 days of course and they'll need to qualify for some sort of visa but that's likely to be limited to on country.

Wouldn't that be an offence already? Eg. you would by definition be in the country illegally. 

I think it may be that they're planning to extend the ID checks around the borders. Since they ended the two-year state of emergency after the 2015 Paris attacks, Macron signed into law further anti-terror measures many of which give far reaching powers for these kinds of checks.

How do they reconcile that with the legal obligation of going to the help of someone in danger?

I've no idea, John. I asked the same question myself.

Indeed. 

Why 'unfortunately'???

... and the Monaco-ans, don't forget them.

Then there's the Basques and the Catalans!

Toungue in cheek. Mountaineers ignoring the border, hence the need for a wall. 

Ah, fair enough, it can be difficult to judge tone in the written word.

If they aren't in the database list they aren't there, and if they aren't there they can't be helped.

Computer says no!