French Rules

[pommedeterre]

Hi, we have a trip booked that is a week in France then several days in Portugal. Do the isolation rules for France still apply if when you land in the UK you had been in France 5 days ago?

Does anyone know? Google not helping!

Yes 14 days I believe.

The full article is behind a paywall but this seems to say that anyone who has been in France in the 10 days before entering the UK must self isolate.

Since you will have been out of France for the first 7 days you should have been isolating presumably you only need to quarantine for three days.

I hadn't thought of that Choux... But would that mean isolating in Portugal though? Quite prepared for travel to be hard work but its having to decode all the rules that bugs!

Since you will have been out of France for the first 7 days you should have been isolating presumably you only need to quarantine for three days.

Sadly I don’t think that’s the case… it looks like if you’ve been in France in the past 14 days, you have to isolate for 10 days on your return to England - see the France box.

The Portugal stay doesn’t matter, unless you can stay there long enough that you haven’t been in France for more than 14 days on your return here.

10 days! Sorry, typo.

@pommedeterre

I hadn't thought of that Choux... But would that mean isolating in Portugal though? Quite prepared for travel to be hard work but its having to decode all the rules that bugs!

When you are in Portugal you should follow Portugal's rules. No idea what they are!

@TakeYourFinalPosition that page seems to assume everyone has come directly from France to the UK. Probably 95+% do but I don't think anyone would say that OP has to isolate until it's 15 days since was in France when the quarantine period for coming directly is only 10 days.

Imagine if OP was going to be in Portugal for 9 days. Would she really need to come back to UK and isolate for 10 days ie until it was 19 days since she last was in France.

I think the Telegraph article is correct - isolate until it's 10 days since you were in France. I imagine Border Control will have you down as a Portugal arrival and won't even check / advise on any isolation due to being in France.

Are you entering Portugal from France? Or going back to the UK first?
You're going to need to look up entry and exit for each step.

I think Portugal would depend on Portugal's rules, UK you would isolate for 10 days and take the required tests - the isolation is to tie in with the tests and its to try and stop the beta variant getting in as AZ isn't very effective against that.

I think France to Portugal is pcr or lat flow test to get in (72 or 48 hrs before) then isolation waived due to double vaccination status.

Its the bit back to the UK where you declare that you have been in France in the last 10 days on the passenger locator form that is more mysterious. Logic says quarantine until 10 days since last in France (although you could have been doing whatever in Portugal!) but wondering if any mention of France puts you back into standard amber quarantine of 10 days with 2 and 8 or pay to release.

Interesting…

In the early days of all this before the color list system started the rules were quite explicit in stating (and I paraphrase) that if you went from somewhere deemed by HMG to be at risk to somewhere deemed of no/very low risk your isolation “clock” started ticking when you left the high risk country - effectively you do exactly what you were thinking and serve some of your quarantine overseas, so to speak…

I’ve just had a look at the current rules and that caveat no longer appears to be in there, and the wording specifically for arrivals from France is:

“If you have been in France in the 10 days before you arrive in England, you must quarantine for 10 days on arrival in England and take day 2 and day 8 COVID-19 tests.”

www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-quarantine-when-you-arrive-in-england

Thanks notimagain - I agree, that seems clear. Illogical but clear. Not that I intend to be 'naughty' but I also doubt that border force would be able to track everyone effectively when arrived from other EU country.

To add..thinking this through if I remember correctly the “old” system where you could reduce quarantine was in the days prior to testing at 2/8 days.

I suspect the current system simply can’t be made flexible enough to cater for somebody who for example arrives in England only needing to isolate for perhaps seven days due to their travel history (when do they do their PCR tests…do they do the 8 day one…? ) hence it’s become a fixed period of ten days.

That said it would be nice if somebody could prove me wrong and find an exemption…

Just seen article in Independent, said if you drive through France you do need to do 10 days isolation. It says the test is have you been in France in last 10 days and says if you have been in Spain etc for 10 days after no isolation but otherwise full 10 days and tests.