saraoutou

Since when do you write your name IN FULL CAPITAL LETTERS ? Une certaine façon d'être petit?

San Gottardo

What I meant was that when I last used PARAFE in 2C there was no human BP check after passing through the gates. That may have changed, I don't know.

SDQBound

It's been a while since I had to show my BP to the officers at 2E, I thought this was not enforced at all

Had the same when traveling to DXB, agent was first interested to know what I was doing there (vacation) and then insisted that my entries/exits to France didn't match my passport stamps. Had to show my UNLP even though my travel was personal and not official, so that they could look at my last entry to the Schengen space and allow me to continue.

pxm

In CDG 2E, immediately after the PARAFE booths there was an officer from the police de l'air et des frontieres that was sitting in a booth and checked boarding passes of people who had just gone through PARAFE. This was on 02 April.

Goldorak

This is the case since the state of emergency in Nov 2015.

SDQBound

I will pay attention on my next departure, but I don't remember having to show my BP last week and also two weeks ago.

Goldorak

While the chaos at 2E for immigration (both departure and arrival) is reaching unbelievable levels (see my post in the FB Ultimate thread), I am linking here screenshots of an article of Le Figaro of last Thursday. It is an interview of the head of border police and I have to say it leaves me a bitter taste. I apologize to not have time to translate the whole article but it talks about the needed reinforcement of the controls within the Schengen area (of course nobody will say differently). But the article starts by saying "When you go to the USA, you wait a very long time for immigration control and nobody complain !". This is really a pathetic statement as, first, it is less true now than before with the kiosks, and second this is a typical French administration behavior to say "it's bad elsewhere, so we do bad too". He says also that they will not be able to increase enough the police resources for passport controls to match the traffic increase and so automated systems are needed (well...yes...we are saying that for years ). The article mentions that PARAFES 2 program is well advanced (really ?) with currently 41 gates installed at CDG, ORY and MRS, number which will reach 81 in 3 years (unbelievable that it can take so long) and that the ideal number should be 160 (which they will achieve likely in 10 years when the technology will be obsolete). Absolutely miserable and, at the moment, still the 3 old PARAFES gates on 2E departures and nothing for arrival (I don't understand why it takes so long to install them as they have removed the old PARAFES gates about 2 months ago).

NickB

+1. It makes rather depressing reading indeed. There are so many points on which to distinguish and refute the false analogy that he makes on the first point that one would not know where to start. As to the latter, I would not want to be too quick to fall into the all too frequent knee-jerk reaction of seeing the French administration as the source of all evils in France (I have seen multitudes of examples of "good enough" rather than "good" approaches to problems in all areas of the world and in the private as well as a public sphere) but it is profoundly dispiriting that someone supposed to show leadership and vision should display such a dismal lack of ambition in what he aims the organisation or service he is responsible for to be capable of offering to the public.

brunos

Totally depressing.

q

That is not always true. Plus, usually in the US when there are long lines, I have seen that most positions are open to cope with the number of people waiting. I have also been quite a few times in >30 minutes wait at Paris CDG, and only two or three out of maybe 10 or 20 positions were open. I cannot think of a more direct way of being told that my waiting time is not worth anything to them.

bodory

Pathetic.

Thanks Goldorak for sharing.

On a side note, I was very surprised the other day at CDG1: it took me 20 minutes from the door of the SQ A380 to my taxi, with checked luggages and certainly not flying in Suites

SDQBound

Thanks for sharing.

The wait is indeed raising to unmanageable levels. 15 days ago I arrived at 7:00 am and it took me around 40 minutes to clear immigration at 2E through the SkyPriority line. 4 days later, also took me a very long time to clear immigration at 8:30 am when leaving France. What I have noticed is that the police agents are questioning more and more foreign passengers. There was a person with a US passport right next to me and the agent was asking her how long she stayed, where she stayed, what she did, which was not usual in the past.

In the meantime, JFK-ORY is a good alternative now that the route has the BEST seats.

Goldorak

Well...it depends. The number of police booths at ORY W is often very low and If you arrive at the same time as 2 packed COI B77W from PTP/FDF...

Today, it took me less than 5 min to clear US immigration (OK, I know it's not always like that )

MarLim

... and I thought PTP/FDF is part of France, so domestic arrival 😉

The point with the US comparison is that the US has improved wait times over the past couple of years (at least in ATL), while France is going in the wrong direction. But this is not just limited to the airports. Two days ago there was a 1.5 hours wait time at the Vallorbe land crossing. Intra-Schengen! That's just pathetic especially considering how easy it is to get in or out of France in the Geneva region without any control.

brunos

One datapoint. My family arrived at CDG1 on QR in J Sunday morning. Plane landed a 7:11, at the gate 7:19, in taxi at 7:42. Having J priority for immigration and checked bag helped. No wait.