Long queues at Paris CDG airport ‘due to shortages of border agents’

Long queues reported at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday were caused by a shortage of border control agents, said airport bosses.

Published: 22 May 2023 16:53 CEST

Long queues at Paris CDG airport 'due to shortages of border agents'

Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

Passengers arriving and departing from Terminal 1 at Paris’s main Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday morning reported queues of up to an hour to pass through passport control checks.

Several passengers tweeted that there were just two border control agents on duty to process departing passengers.

Bosses at Aéroports de Paris, which runs Paris Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports, acknowledged that there had been problems, and said they were caused by a shortage of border control agents, adding that queues had cleared by lunchtime.

An airport spokesman told French broadcaster BFM TV: “Monday was a big day, with over 200,000 passengers expected at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. At Terminal 1, the wait this morning exceeded 60 minutes at departure due to a strong influx of passengers and a strain on border police staff in the sector. The other sectors of Paris-CDG were well supplied and did not experience high waiting times.”

The lack of border agents is a recurring problem at France’s busiest airport. A lack of French border control agents has also been blamed for long queues seen at peak departure periods from the British port of Dover – although longer immigration processes since Brexit are also a major factor.

The French Police aux Frontières said that they had almost 300 staff vacancies at the end of 2022, and have begun a major recruitment process.

It plans to recruit 255 additional agents for the Paris airports by June and 500 before the end of 2024.

In addition to the usual summer holiday traffic and the Rugby World Cup in September and October this year, airport authorities are also looking ahead to the huge visitor numbers expected during the Paris Olympics and Paralympics in 2024.

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Once a preferred spot for gala premieres, the UGC Normandie was one of several grand cinemas on the Champs-Elysées that made the area a hub for film buffs in the 1960s and 70s.

But the street long ago lost its cool among Parisians, becoming increasingly dominated by flagship fashion stores and tourists taking snaps of the Arc de Triomphe.

The UGC cinema chain said it faced a “very sharp increase in rent” at the location, which is owned by the Qatari royal family.

Two other famed cinemas on the boulevard, the George V and Gaumont Marignan, have closed since 2020.

“The cinema is disappearing in somewhat terrible circumstances for the whole culture,” said a former employee, 22-year-old Yann Raffin, adding that he feels both “sadness” and “anger”.

“This avenue is transforming into an avenue reserved for the ultra-rich,” he told AFP.

The last screening on Wednesday night was “La La Land” with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, a fitting tribute to Hollywood musicals of a bygone era.

Its director, Damien Chazelle, appeared on screen with a special message for the sold-out crowd.

“This room was an extension of my own life, it was a friend and an ally,” said Mehdi Omais, 40, a film journalist, visibly moved.

“It’s heartbreaking to see it close and to see this avenue becoming a cemetery of cinemas.”

An auction of the chairs and decor was due on Thursday, including the huge letters on the outside, with proceeds going to a charity that organises screenings for hospitalised children.

Paris remains a film-going hotspot and still has more cinemas per head than anywhere in the world, with swanky new theatres opening elsewhere in the city.

They include a state-of-the-art Pathe cinema near the Opera Garnier, designed by architect Renzo Piano who created the Pompidou Centre and The Shard in London.