A scheme designed to increase the number of French children who can travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in jeopardy as a result of a review of UK entry requirements.
New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and then UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The pair reached a deal to allow French pupils to travel to Britain using national ID cards and their non-EU classmates to enter visa-free, in a bid to address the decline in visits after the Brexit.
However, the Financial Times reported that the plan was at risk due to the UK's new electronic travel authorization (ETA) scheme, which will come into force on April 2, 2025 and will require all EU visitors to register. before traveling to the UK, a process that requires children to have a passport.
The Monetary Occasions cited a letter written by Valérie Boned, president of Les Entreprises du Voyage, the main trade body for travel agencies in France, to the UK's Inside Minister Yvette Cooper on October 8 asking whether the program for French school groups would be retained. The group said it had not received a response from the Inside Ministry.
The Inside Ministry declined to comment.
Boned wrote in his letter, seen by the Monetary Occasions: “The sooner we can clarify the situation, the less impact it will have on the number of school trips by 2025.”
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According to data from Les Entreprises du Voyage, the scheme has led to a 30% increase in school trips to the UK from France, which it said were 60% below 2019 levels when the scheme was introduced.
The Monetary Occasions also cited French government officials who had “expressed concern” to the UK government about how the ETA program would affect the school travel plan.
The Trabajo government has pledged to “reset” relations with the EU. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure from Brussels for the restart to include opening discussions on a youth mobility plan that would allow young people from the EU to live and work in the UK for a fixed period, and vice versa.
However, Starmer has repeatedly ruled out such a move, despite the UK having similar agreements with more geographically distant partners such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.