Less than a month before France’s phased introduction of the European Union Entry/Exit System (EES) is supposed to reach full coverage, the French interior ministry is grappling with hardware and software problems that threaten the timetable. The Connexion reports that kiosks and tablet-based Pre-Registration Devices (PRDs) installed at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, Nice, the Eurostar terminals and major ferry ports are still failing to capture fingerprints or interface reliably with the central EU database. A government source quoted by the paper admits that only “around one-third” of non-EU travellers have been successfully enrolled so far, well short of the 50 % threshold that France was meant to achieve by 10 March. The issues range from sporadic outages—forcing border officers to revert to manual booths—to incompatibility between the new biometric software and PARAFE e-gates. Port officials at Dover and Eurotunnel operator Getlink say they are still waiting for a green light from French authorities to activate kiosks for car passengers, even though testing on coach lanes began in October. In the meantime, long queues have been observed during peak morning banks at CDG, raising fears of Easter-holiday bottlenecks.
![France’s Roll-Out of EU Entry/Exit System Hits Technical Snags, Forcing New Contingency Plans]()
At this stage, travellers looking for peace of mind can turn to VisaHQ’s France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/), where real-time updates on EES and ETIAS roll-outs sit alongside fast, online visa and passport processing. The service gives companies and individual visitors an easy fallback should paperwork, authorisations or biometric pre-registration become stumbling blocks at the border.
French officials insist the 10 April cut-over—after which passport stamping is due to be replaced by digital records—remains “technically feasible,” but the European Commission has publicly singled out three Member States, believed to include France, that are “quite a bit away” from current benchmarks. The Commission warned that any state not ready will be obliged to keep stamping passports, creating a two-speed Schengen border and potentially undermining the point of the system. For business travellers, the uncertainty means allowing extra time at departure points and checking whether their employer’s preferred immigration counsel has updated guidance on EES queues. Airlines are already advising premium passengers to arrive 30 minutes earlier than usual for flights to London and New York, while Eurostar has told corporate account holders that flexible tickets may be subject to boarding-cut-off changes at short notice. If France misses the April milestone it could also delay the pan-EU launch of ETIAS, the electronic travel authorisation that is supposed to piggy-back on EES data. Multinational companies moving staff into France this spring should therefore monitor contingency measures—such as mobile enrolment teams in airport lounges—and brief travellers on the possibility of manual processing until the backlog is cleared.
At this stage, travellers looking for peace of mind can turn to VisaHQ’s France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/), where real-time updates on EES and ETIAS roll-outs sit alongside fast, online visa and passport processing. The service gives companies and individual visitors an easy fallback should paperwork, authorisations or biometric pre-registration become stumbling blocks at the border.
French officials insist the 10 April cut-over—after which passport stamping is due to be replaced by digital records—remains “technically feasible,” but the European Commission has publicly singled out three Member States, believed to include France, that are “quite a bit away” from current benchmarks. The Commission warned that any state not ready will be obliged to keep stamping passports, creating a two-speed Schengen border and potentially undermining the point of the system. For business travellers, the uncertainty means allowing extra time at departure points and checking whether their employer’s preferred immigration counsel has updated guidance on EES queues. Airlines are already advising premium passengers to arrive 30 minutes earlier than usual for flights to London and New York, while Eurostar has told corporate account holders that flexible tickets may be subject to boarding-cut-off changes at short notice. If France misses the April milestone it could also delay the pan-EU launch of ETIAS, the electronic travel authorisation that is supposed to piggy-back on EES data. Multinational companies moving staff into France this spring should therefore monitor contingency measures—such as mobile enrolment teams in airport lounges—and brief travellers on the possibility of manual processing until the backlog is cleared.
