A scheme designed to boost the numbers of French children able to travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of an overhaul of entry requirements in the UK. New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak. The pair struck a deal to allow French pupils to travel to Britain using national identity cards, and for their non-EU classmates to enter without the need for a visa, in an attempt to address a decline in visits after Brexit.
However, the Financial Times reported that the scheme was at risk because of the UK’s new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme, which is due to come into force on 2 April 2025 and will require all EU visitors to register before travelling to the UK, a process that requires children to have a passport. The FT cited a letter written by Valérie Boned, the president of Les Entreprises du Voyage, the main trade body for travel agencies in France, to the UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, on 8 October asking whether the programme for French school groups would be retained. The group said it had not received a reply from the Home Office. The Home Office declined to comment. Boned wrote in her letter, seen by the FT: “The sooner we manage to clear the situation, the less impact it will have on the number of school trips for 2025,.”
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 had been 60% below 2019 levels when the scheme was introduced. The FT also cited French government officials who had “expressed concern” to the UK government over how the ETA programme would affect the school trips scheme. The Labour government has committed to “resetting” relations with the EU. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is under pressure from Brussels for the reset to include opening discussions on a youth mobility scheme 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 measure, despite the UK having similar arrangements with more geographically distant partners such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.