User-friendly Security CDG
 

There are few airports in the developed world as depressing as CDG. It starts when you have to go through the Gare du Nord or Chatelet on the RER, a crowded, smelly, graffiti-ridden excuse for a train.

The exposed concrete of Terminal 1, the attempt at modernity that are the plastic tubes you walk through on your way to the gate that only succeed in looking like a parody of a 1950’s space comic book, and especially the retro-look white hexagonal tiles on the floor that are brown and stained with age and grotty through and through.

What a nice surprise, then, offered by the professional, thorough and very courteous service by the French version of the TSA.

Satellite 7, 2 pm today. Staffed by three people. No shouting MOVE down!, MOVE down! No “Take your laptops out of their bags!!” or worse, being addressed as “You people.”

Act 1, Scene 1 – a young mother is struggling with carryon, baby and collapsible stroller. Agent (not sure what they are called in France) tries to collapse the stroller for her, but he just can’t find the right button. So he takes the baby in his arms while Mum collapses the stroller, then hands baby back and puts the stroller on the belt. Smiles all around.

Act 1, Scene 2 – I have my gels, liquids and creams out in their bag (Monsieur Kippy bag?) and I go through the metal detector. Agent on the other side says quietly and politely: “Is this bag yours sir?” “Yes” I say. “May I look in it?” she asks (I kid you not). “Of course,” I answer and, after she carefully moves a few of the contents around, then puts them back, she says “Thank you very much.” Off I go.

Now I’m sure that the TSA believe they have nothing to learn from the French, but I would very much like to see Guido, the one on steroids, with the shaved head at EWR Terminal C, sign up for La Securite 101. I think it would do him good.

On the other hand, my last trip through CDG involved the security agents singling out every American male for gate-rape in the jetway. Women, children, and French citizens were not subject to the ransacking.

I will actually agree with the OP. In all my travels through CDG I have never come across a rude security agent (and contrary to many others, I have never come across a rude person in Paris EVER). I am not french and I do not speak french (although I know enough to get by and act polite). I think personally the french get a bad name.

Ditto on all of your points.

CDG is a nightmare of an airport to be sure, but I haven't run across easier Schengen immigration anywhere on the continent. Even when Air France lost my luggage and almost put it on a flight to Madras, the lost luggage people were courteous and very efficient (Term. 2E). I've never met a rude Parisian waiter either.

Going through the security at CDG has always been a pleasant (or as pleasant as can be) experience.

Wirelessly posted (HTC WM5: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320) Opera 8.65 [en])

je ne sais quo.

User friendly? Not in this dimension.
 

This is from an email I sent out after my last (hopefully) trip through CDG. This was just prior to the liquid ban. And for the record, I am an American male, 40 and at the time, had a beard.

CDG, a nightmare in itself. I try to avoid this wonder of bad signage and the occasionally collapsing terminal.

At the security checkpoint I did the usual, remove shoes, belt and empty pockets. All that and the carry on went into the x-ray and into the WTMD. After I collected my things and put my shoes on, I was guided (by the arm) to another line and repeated the whole process over, shoes, belt and pocket stuff into the bin and me through the WTMD. Made it through that one, put my shoes back on and shoved everything else into the carry on bag. Then some loud person shrieked some command at me and I was again guided to yet another WTMD. Shoes off, and with the bag through another x-ray. I went through the WTMD, picked up my shoes and bag and waited. No one showed any more interest, so I wandered off, carrying my shoes. I didn't put them on until I got the gate. Then I sat, watching travellers smoking in the general vicinity of the smoking area. I think within fifty feet of the room is OK. Room, as in walls with no ceiling.

Next, among the thousands of announcements made over the PA, only in French of course, my flight to the US had been changed from this gate to that gate. Not being a French speaker, I missed this minor detail. In fact, nearly every time I have been at CDG, the departure gate has been changed. Since my flight time was approaching, I went back up to my departure gate. An entirely different number and destination were listed. I asked the gate agent, in German, where my flight was. (Funny, the French always give me more respect when I speak German instead of English. And it is more fun!) She directed me to a nearby gate where people were going out the doorway. For whatever reason, the aircraft was not actually there. Finally time to go. I show my boarding pass to the GA and head down the jetway. About halfway down, a nasty little man (picture LeBeau from Hogan's Heroes) was waiting. He mumbled something at me, so I show him my boarding pass. He mumbled something else and pulls my carry on bag away. In all his yammering I catch the word 'Securite'. I stand there and watch as he pulls each item out of the bag and stares blankly. I offered helpful tips like, belt, book, camera, CD's, etc. My flash drive had him totally perplexed. Then he came to an unopened eight pack of AA batteries! Slowly, he turned the package over in his hands. Then he opened that, took all the batteries out and inspected each one. It made me wonder what 'Duracell' translates to in French. After long consideration, he said, "This is too many." He then took two batteries and added them to his pile of confiscated items. In the pile were a bike lock, hair dryer, nail clippers, cosmetics, various electrical cords and other things. Basically everything needed to give an AF air hostess a bad makeover. During this whole time, all the other passengers going by went unmolested. Who knows what deadly things they carried. Next he stood and motioned for me to put my arms out. I then got a very thorough feel up that left nothing to the imagination. He checked every inch of my body. When he reached my ankles, he mumbled something again. He wanted to see my shoes. So shoes off for the fourth time, and he slowly pulled back the tongue, checked the laces and then the inside. I was so glad I didn't get new Odor Eaters before I left. When he was satisfied with the shoes, he went back to my ankles, pulled back the tops of my socks and looked for prohibited items. Finally he stood, and asked for my passport and boarding pass. After yet another careful examination he handed them back and said, "You wait here". So I stood there waiting. By this point no passengers were coming down the jetway. After a while, a woman came up the stairs into the jetway and shouted something at me. I stared at her blankly, so she shouted, "Come, come". I tried to explain that the man told me to wait. She was hearing none of it and grabbed me by the arm, pulled me out the door and down the stairs. Outside she shoved me into a van and I was off to the plane with several members of the flight crew. After an eternity of driving around the airport, we got to the aircraft, I was the last passenger on. When we were airborne and the seatbelt sign was off, I tied my shoes.

Compared to this place, LHR and LGW are a cake walk. TXL is easy too, but I have never taken a trans-Atlantic flight from there.

CDG is anything but traveler friendly when you carry a US passport. Bought a chunk of cheese in the A'dam duty free shop, had it packed in a sealed bag for transport thru CDG back to the states. The French TSA guy says something like - it must stay here with a heavy accent. We banter back and forth he insisting he had to keep it as only EU products could go through. I guess Les Pays Bas aren't EU!

I finally get pissed off, unwrap the cheese, take a bite, drop it on the floor then hand it to him. In perfect english he says, you a**h*l*, that was my cheese. But he then passed me through security . . . merely a coincidence that it was noonish?

I fly out of CDG pretty frequently, and the only times I've had problems with security was for flights to the US. Once, I got the full carry on search because I was with someone whose bag had to go through the machine twice. Despite the all-clear from the scanner operator, this one guy took it on himself to slowly search my companion's bag and then demand to search mine just because I was standing there. I try to think he was just having a bad day, though it looks could kill he'd have been bleeding profusely.

I have to admit I like the Habitrail parts of Terminal 1. And the refurbished bits of the terminal have been much improved.

Hmm. Flights to the US vs US passport -- hadn't considered that. My flight was to Madrid, but there were flights leaving for Rekjiavik and Stockholm about the same time from the same Satellite (set of gates) and those passengers did not seem to have any problems.

Perhaps the French security people get unhappy when passengers treat them as they would treat the TSA?

I was pulled aside just as I was boarding the plane to be re-screened, a process that apparently required reading every scrap of paper in my possession and re-possessing a pen from Paris in Las Vegas as somehow being airport property -- after all, it said "Paris" on it, didn't it. I barely got in before the doors closed. And I'm a woman. I figured it was a case of trying to prove to Americans that they're as serious as Americans about the security nonsense, especially after the shoe bomber debacle. But it is not a procedure I would like to see implemented anywhere else.