Advertisement

British visitors to France could face two-week quarantine after UK measures

<span>Photograph: Daniel Cole/AP</span>
Photograph: Daniel Cole/AP

British visitors to France could face a two-week quarantine in France, as the French government threatened retaliation after being removed from the UK safe travel list following a spike in coronavirus cases.

But the Netherlands, which was also removed from the travel corridor list late on Thursday, has ruled out reciprocal measures.

From 4am BST on Saturday, arrivals to the UK from France and the Netherlands must go into quarantine for two weeks, or risk a fine, the UK government has announced.

France’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, tweeted that the government regretted the British decision that would “lead to a reciprocal measure”, saying the country was “hoping for a return to normal as soon as possible”. Transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari tweeted: “I told my counterpart, Grant Shapps, of our willingness to harmonise health protocols to assure a high level of protection on both sides of the Channel.”

But the Dutch government ruled out tit-for-tat measures, although it has added the UK to an orange list, which advises travellers from the Netherlands against non-essential visits, because of the 14-day quarantine they face in the UK. “We will not take reciprocal measures,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said. “Our travel advisory specifically states that travellers from the UK to the Netherlands do not need to go into quarantine upon arrival in the Netherlands.”

Joba van den Berg, a Dutch parliamentarian for the Christian Democrat Appeal party, which is part of the governing coalition, said she regretted but partially understood the British decision. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said new cases were concentrated in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, but across the rest of the country there were hardly any infections”.

The UK decision came after France reported 2,669 daily infections on Thursday, the highest number since May, before lockdown restrictions were eased. The Netherlands has been reporting an average of just over 600 cases per day, more than half its total at the peak of the pandemic. The UK, however, had a far higher rate of coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people in the past two weeks than France or the Netherlands.

The news is a bitter blow to the French tourist industry, which welcomed 11.9 million British holidaymakers in 2016.

“It will have a negative impact on tourism in Dordogne, especially the airport,” said Christophe Gravier, director of the Dordogne tourism board. In 2019 British visitors to the region accounted for nearly one third of hotel night stays, making them the most numerous foreign visitors.

Gravier said: “I had this morning a hotel [owner] who told me he had just customers yesterday coming from England and they had to go back today. So we have cases of people leaving the Dordogne and going back to England.”

But an increase in French visitors has helped the region compensate for reduced numbers of foreign tourists, including British ones. “We had the chance to replace overseas customers with French, so the season this year is still a great season even if it started very late in the year,” Gravier said. “All the hotels are full.”

This meant, he added, that the British decision would not be a problem for the wider region, “but for the airport, where we have more than 80% of passengers coming from the United Kingdom, it will be a catastrophe”.

Most of the flights operated from Dordogne’s Bergerac airport run to the UK, to cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool and London.

Spain, the most popular overseas destination for British tourists, was removed from the UK safe corridor list on 25 July, followed by Luxembourg and Belgium.

All EU countries removed from the safe list have a higher number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 than the UK in the past fortnight, though Britain has a far higher coronavirus death rate per 100,000 in the same period. France has recorded an average of 34 cases and 0.2 deaths per 100,000 over the last fortnight, while the Netherlands has 41.6 cases and 0.1 deaths per 100,000, compared with 17.3 cases and 1.1 deaths per 100,000 people in a fortnight in the UK, according to the latest data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.