Breaking: France to tighten travel restrictions for UK travellers

Breaking: France to tighten travel restrictions for UK travellers.

BREAKING NEWS – France is set to tighten travel restrictions for UK travellers and will BAN non-essential travel to and from Britain from Saturday, December 18.

New measures are being put into place to slow the spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant, the government said on Thursday, December 16.

“We are going to put in place even more drastic testing measures on the border with the UK,” said French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal.

Speaking to BFM television, Attal said was going to the prime minister’s office later on Thursday to unveil the new measures, which will include travellers to the country requiring a negative test less than 24 hours old plus a blanket quarantine would be enforced on return to France, and trips for tourism limited.

“We will reduce the validity of the test to come to France from 48 hours to 24 hours,” said Attal.

“We will limit the reasons for coming to France from the UK, it will be limited to French nationals and residents and their families. Tourism or business trips for people who do not have French or European nationality or are residents will be limited.

“People [coming back] will have to register on an app and will have to self-isolate in a place of their choosing for seven days – controlled by the security forces – but this can be shortened to 48 hours if a negative test is carried out in France.”

Both France and the UK are grappling with rising Covid infections.

Yesterday, December 15, the UK confirmed 78,610 new Covid cases – the highest daily cases since the pandemic started. It broke the previous record set in January this year (68,053) by over 10,000.

Whilst the 5th wave appears to have peaked in France, scientists believe a 6th wave, fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant, will follow shortly.

There are now at least 170 Omicron cases in France although the real number is likely far higher because not all positive cases are tested for the variant.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.