French Boarder Control was a joke

[Rs2oo]

I went in my van this year with one mate and met the rest of our group there. We queued, my God did we queue, then drove to the French Passport Control. I gave the pen-pusher mine and my mates passports, watched as he opened them, flicked to the photo page then scanned them and gave them back. We got in the next queue where there was an armed French Border Control guy checking passports. As we waited, I looked at my passport and to my horror discovered it was in fact my wife's passport. Yes I'm an idiot for taking the wrong passport. We were next up so gave both passports to the Border Control guy who looked at me and asked where we were going. I pointed to the massive 24 Hours Le Mans stickers on the van and said "Le Mans". Like the pen-pusher before, he flicked to the photo page, then scanned it and returned it. Now my mate does not look anything like me and I certainly don't look like my wife ! yet he didn't pick up on either point. We continued out journey to LMS, had a great time then returned to Calais and the UK Border Control who picked up on it straight away. They were brilliant and I have 100% faith in them. They very quickly sorted it out and we were only delayed by 15 minutes.

French Border and Passport Control, you are st.

[fatboy18]

HeHe

[GDEvans]

That explains how the refugees manage to get into France but no further...

[//j17]

Couple of points:
1. We're meant to have full count-them-out/count-them-in checks at UK bordered these days so you would (should) have gone through a UK passport check on the way on the way out too and clearly they didn't pick up on it.
2. You don't really need a passport to get in to France from the UK and since you weren't going for a football fight even if they spotted it they didn't care. You do need one to get back in to the UK from France though.
3. Would you really have preferred the French passport guy to go "Non." and send you home, missing your ferry and delaying your trip?

[chrisr111r]

At the tunnel, they had the particularly great trick of having all/a lot of the booths manned but then forcing everyone into one lane for the car park which was already gridlocked due to all the delays. There weren't any of the migratn damage issues that I hear there were at the ferry port though thank god!

[Spare tyre]

I was on foot for logistical reasons and went from st panc in London

We had British and French passport checks, they were very thorough there, so much so we missed our train on the way back because the queue at Lille was massive

[Rs2oo]

//j17 said:

Couple of points:
would you really have preferred the French passport guy to go "Non." and send you home, missing your ferry and delaying your trip?

Hell no ! we were holding our breath through the second check everything crossed. I'm just appalled at how easy it is to present a passport with a very obvious looking woman in the photos with a female name and I'm an ugly bloke....

[paulyv]

Rs2oo said:

Hell no ! we were holding our breath through the second check everything crossed. I'm just appalled at how easy it is to present a passport with a very obvious looking woman in the photos with a female name and I'm an ugly bloke....

Perhaps you look more feminine than you are led to believe!

[tarnished]

There's a field for gender even in case the French can't work it out from the name.

[Rs2oo]

paulyv said:

Perhaps you look more feminine than you are led to believe!

I have a goatee and am bald .............. actually come to think of it I do know a few women like that

[Petrolhead_Rich]

Rs2oo said:

I went in my van this year with one mate and met the rest of our group there. We queued, my God did we queue, then drove to the French Passport Control. I gave the pen-pusher mine and my mates passports, watched as he opened them, flicked to the photo page then scanned them and gave them back. We got in the next queue where there was an armed French Border Control guy checking passports. As we waited, I looked at my passport and to my horror discovered it was in fact my wife's passport. Yes I'm an idiot for taking the wrong passport. We were next up so gave both passports to the Border Control guy who looked at me and asked where we were going. I pointed to the massive 24 Hours Le Mans stickers on the van and said "Le Mans". Like the pen-pusher before, he flicked to the photo page, then scanned it and returned it. Now my mate does not look anything like me and I certainly don't look like my wife ! yet he didn't pick up on either point. We continued out journey to LMS, had a great time then returned to Calais and the UK Border Control who picked up on it straight away. They were brilliant and I have 100% faith in them. They very quickly sorted it out and we were only delayed by 15 minutes.

French Border and Passport Control, you are st.

Can beat that, we were in a van 3 up, handed him my passport, then reached over for my friends passports only to be handed mine back and told to go, didn't even bother looking at my two mates passports!!

[jiggerj60]

The day before leaving I discovered my passport had expired by quite a few months. Rushed to the passport office but it was too late in the day. We decided to risk it and like you it was only picked up on the way back by that point we were just waved through.

[ukcobra]

My daughters passport expiry a few years ago was picked up by DFDS and we had to wait an hour while the French Immigration decided what to do. We were told we would have a good telling off when we got to France. It did not happen and we had a good holiday.
Proving that you can travel on an expired passport if it's a genuine mistake.

[vanordinaire]

Rs2oo said:

I have a goatee and am bald .............. actually come to think of it I do know a few women like that

Yes, it's called a Brazillian