“They can’t stop us from going to pick up our children! You might think that Aurélie is indignant, but she is already well beyond. Her three-and-a-half-year-old son is “alone in London,” she tells us, along with her British father, after joint custody since a painful divorce. As in Never without my daughter, she tells us. Aurélie did a PCR test in Paris on Tuesday morning and is waiting for the results to jump on a train leaving for London as soon as possible. How and when will she be able to return home to Paris? She has no idea.
France, after the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Germany, announced on Sunday the suspension of transport from Great Britain. Almost all the countries of the Union have followed suit in the face of an unprecedented situation: the threat of a mutant Covid which has been spreading since September in England, potentially up to 70% more contagious. Since Wednesday morning, Paris authorizes the passage “under conditions”, with a negative test for coronavirus and its new variant, less than 72 hours. Truck drivers stuck in Dover will have to undergo an antigen test, the result of which is available in thirty minutes, to be able to cross the Channel to France.
Unfortunately for residents of the European Union who wish to leave the UK, the laboratories are being taken by storm. In fact, you normally have to have symptoms to be tested in public laboratories, depending on the NHS, and private laboratories provide tests only by appointment for the modest sum, on average, of 150 pounds sterling (165 euros). , with a known result in one to several days.
A trial
Aurélie, art broker in Paris, was to pick up her little boy on December 23. She has moved heaven and earth since Sunday, called the embassy which did not respond, tried the Quai d’Orsay, called for a “sanitary corridor for the reunification of minors”, as during the first confinement. “We can not leave the children in the air”, scolds this mother, between anger and anguish in the face of the “ubuesque” situation of these forty-eight hours of total blackout.
On the other side of the Channel, the disaster is taking shape. Claudy, 46-year-old truck driver for Challenge Intercontinental Express, passed the Channel on Saturday without a hitch with a schedule of four deliveries to the London suburban area. His tour is almost finished: “Four drop points and a load, you never come home empty”, explains the man with the red semi-trailer, father of four children, who has never missed a Christmas.
What he did not know, and that he learned late, is that this trip “without any customs formalities” would be without return. “Today is the birthday of my youngest, 5 years old,” he tells us. I had to go home this (Tuesday) evening. He just made a phone call to tell him that he wouldn’t be there to watch him blow out his candles. He didn’t dare tell his wife that maybe Christmas was compromised. Not yet.
The man is afraid to spend the night of New Years eve “in [s]we truck ”. With the others, in single file along the M20, the motorway that leaves London and leads to Dover or Folkestone, the two main commercial entry points to Europe. “Or in a gas station,” adds the driver, without complaining.
The discomfort is less, but the surprise just as important for Frédéric, wine expert for Sotheby’s, installed in the coastal town of Folkestone for six years. The Bordelais had to cancel everything: “Family vacations and New Years in Ibiza with friends. He was afraid of infecting his parents, the temporary closure of the borders has finally convinced him. He misses Bordeaux and Cap-Ferret, “psychologically, it’s starting to play out”.
The same goes for Jean, in finance, as a couple and father of two teenagers. This “commuter”, as we used to say at the time when we were still going to his place of work (the City), gave up returning to France at the last moment, just before the announcement of the impossibility of do it. “We were in level 3, we hoped to return to level 2, and then here we are …” The south of the country and London have indeed passed in great majority to level 4 Saturday December 19 (a relaxed confinement, like ours in November ), following a so-called “uncontrollable” situation in this area, according to the Minister of Health.
In a disappointed voice, the trader tells us about the wait, the vain hope that the activity of his partner Dorothée, in the hotel industry, will resume. “The whole holiday period was booked, the hotel just had to reopen, and then …” He now knows that Dorothée’s job is threatened by the prolongation of the health crisis, and consoles himself by watching what’s left of good in supermarkets, the only stores open, “so that Christmas looks a bit like Christmas”.
But not all French people were surprised. “We had not really planned the blow”, we are assured at the Lelongs, a couple and three expatriate children in a chic district of London, “but the instability of the situation and the ten days of quarantine have made any project impossible ”. The family reunion for the holidays therefore involves the arrival of the grandmother from France, and her quarantine at the family home in South Kensighton. “A concession for two weeks which risks turning into two months!” », Laments Élise, the mother of the children, about her mother-in-law… Her eldest son, Gabriel, born from a previous union, had the chance to leave England at the last minute on Saturday to join his father in the Parisian suburbs . Barely hours before a compact crowd invaded St Pancras airports and train station, the exodus of travelers trying to leave the country.
But there are also these French who have (very badly) lived the trauma of the quarantine of fourteen days, the one which had been brutally imposed by Boris Johnson in the middle of August. His announcement then triggered a massive rush in the other direction (from France to the UK) and the premature end of the holidays for all British residents who were enjoying their holidays in our beautiful country classified red by 10 Downing Street. . Like Violaine, marketing manager in the medical field, mother of three children under the age of 7, Londoner for ten years, in the district of Fulham, who, “like all French people”, preferred to cancel everything, “skiing, family », From October.
For her, it was unimaginable to risk doing “still” class at home for her tribe – her children’s school closed for three weeks in November. “For the first time in my life, I won’t be spending Christmas with my family, but it’s a decision made for my sanity, not to go wild. “Especially since” this closure of borders we do not have the impression of being isolated, she adds, but of being really stuck. ” For the first time in her life too, she admits to having organized herself: “All the gifts were posted ten days ago, we are ready. “
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
