France is set to ramp up the intensity of border controls with European neighbours amid fears of uncontrolled migration and terror threats just weeks after Germany announced a similar policy.
French authorities informed the European Commission last week that its borders with six of its neighbouring Schengen members – namely Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland – will be reinforced with increased checks as of November 1 for at least six months.
The controls will be applied to travellers entering France via land, sea and air routes from all six nations and are set to expire on April 1, 2025, but authorities have said they could be extended further.
A French government statement declared the checks were introduced due to ‘serious threats to public policy, public order, and internal security posed by high-level terrorist activities… criminal networks facilitating irregular migration and smuggling, and migration flows that risk infiltration by radicalised individuals’.
It is the first time France has introduced such controls since the Covid-19 pandemic and could see migrants and unauthorised travellers turned back at the border and those suspected of criminal activity detained.
German police stand guard at a border with France, as all German land borders are subject to random controls to protect internal security and reduce irregular migration
Officers detain a man on the German/French border in Kehl, western Germany
Police stand at a customs checkpoint at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, in the northern outskirts of Paris, on October 18, 2024
Passengers passing through an exit at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport
Under the Schengen Agreement, 29 European countries agreed to abolish internal border controls with the goal of achieving freedom of movement throughout the continent.
Twenty-five of 27 EU member states are party to the agreement along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
However, the Schengen Borders Code does allow member states to introduce ‘last-resort’ temporary border checks if authorities believe that there is a serious threat to public order or internal security.
These temporary restrictions can last for up to six months, which is why French authorities named the expiry date of the upcoming measures as April 1, 2025.
But such checks can be extended if the threats are deemed to persist.
The measures set to go into effect in France from November 1 do not in any way affect the rights of Europeans and other citizens to travel to France, and will only apply to travellers coming from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland.
But people entering France from these states could face lengthy queues at border points.
The move comes weeks after France’s EU partner Germany introduced similar controls in September, citing a wave of Islamic extremist attacks and concerns over rampant migration.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser insisted at the time that the step would help ‘put a stop to criminals and identify and stop Islamists at an early stage’.
The announcement was met with criticism from several European partners, particularly Austria which said it would refuse to accept any migrants turned away at the shared border with Germany.
The European Commission meanwhile warned that EU members must only impose such steps in exceptional circumstances.
But German government figures published shortly after the controls came into action offered shocking revelations.
In just five days after the reintroduction of border checks across all of Germany’s borders, federal police detected almost 900 unauthorised entries.
Of those, 640 people were turned back, 17 extremists were identified, and 114 arrest warrants were executed.
In an interview with Germany’s Focus magazine, Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the Federal Police Union said: ‘We are witnessing the efficiency of the federal police and, above all, we are once again seeing confirmation of the necessity of border controls.’
Those in favour of reintroducing the restrictions argued it was only necessary to do so because the EU’s external border controls had failed.
A German police officer with guard dog at a border with France, as all German land borders are subject to random controls
German police check people arriving from France at the German-French border on September 16, 2024
France’s introduction of stricter controls also comes weeks after an EU scheme to impose new border controls on non-EU nationals was shelved indefinitely, saving British holidaymakers from an ordeal that many feared would trigger chaos at airports and border checkpoints.
The EU confirmed earlier this month that the so-called Entry/Exit System (EES), originally set to roll out on November 10, had been placed on hold as key members of the bloc – namely France, Germany and the Netherlands – were not ready to implement it.
The EES intends to do away with passport checks and stamps, replacing the current system with a slew of biometric tests that would require non-EU passport holders, including Brits, to submit fingerprints and facial scans at their first point of entry into the Schengen Zone.
Each subsequent visit would have triggered a fresh biometric check, a scheme that many feared would turn visits to the continent into a severe logistical headache.
But after a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg, Brussels announced that the launch date is ‘no longer on the table’ – with no new schedule in sight.
This marks the third time the EES has been postponed – and unlike previous delays, this one comes with no promises of a new timeline.
First agreed on in 2017, the automated system was set to replace manual passport stamping and automatically record visitors’ date of entry and exit.
This, it is argued, would help authorities to keep track of overstays and refused entries, and crack down on illegal migration.
But news of the scheme raised fears of queues and longer waiting times for people travelling to Europe on trains, ferries and planes, with Brussels ultimately forced to reconsider its original launch date last year amid warnings that border crossings would be snarled if the system launched too abruptly without the requisite infrastructure in place.
Under the EES, each time visitors cross into the continent, they will have to show a facial image and provide four fingerprints
Queues at the Port of Dover – one of the locations where the postponed EES will be introduced
A sign alerts travellers arriving at the Port of Dover of the works underway to facilitate the new and much delayed European Union Entry Exit System
A British parliamentary committee earlier this year said some British passengers could initially expect delays of up to 14 hours, prompting harsh criticism of the scheme from this side of the Channel.
Calls to implement the EES early this year were denied by France amid fears that two major sporting events – the Rugby World Cup and the Paris Olympics – would be disrupted, and so the launch date was rescheduled for October 6, then again to November 10.
The delay in rolling out the EES may be seen as a win for British travellers, but proponents of the scheme say the move exposes deeper cracks within the EU.
Germany, France, and the Netherlands, which between them handle a hefty 40 per cent of all non-EU traffic into the bloc, have struggled to install the IT infrastructure needed to implement the complicated new system.
