The majority will be deployed at French Channel ports such as Calais, Dunkirk and Le Havre, as country prepares for no-deal EU exit by UK
France is to recruit 700 additional customs officers over the next three years as part of its post-Brexit preparations, the vast majority being deployed at French Channel ports such as Calais, Dunkirk and Le Havre.
During a visit to Calais yesterday, Gerald Darmanin, the French minister of Public Finances, who has responsibility for the customs authority, said France was preparing for a hard ‘no deal’ Brexit.
“We don’t know what will happen and, therefore, we are preparing ourselves for the worst. In any case, it’s the scenario that the prime minister has asked me to work to,” he said.
Darmanin also announced the installation of scanners that will allow customs officers to work upstream and inspect trains, particularly freight trains operating through the Channel Tunnel, without requiring them to stop.
In a separate development but also in anticipation of a hard Brexit, the Hauts de France regional public authority, whose jurisdiction encompasses Calais and its environs, has put an option on a plot of land where it plans to build new customs and sanitary facilities at an estimated cost of more than €100 million, in order to accommodate the 7,000 trucks which pass through its ports and the Channel Tunnel rail crossing every day.
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