# Be on your guard !!!



## runnach (Jun 14, 2018)

I have no idea whether this is 100 % true, I wasn't there .....But I do trust the source implicitly.

PLEASE READ........".Hi everyone yesterday we stayed at Quistreham next to the aire is a ferry terminal to England. I woke up at 4am woke OH up told him I thought the garage being broke in. Walked round MH everything fine. Heard shouting a welsh chap who was getting the 6am ferry getting a chap from underneath his van . Neither of us could sleep then we heard a noise and the MH rocked we had a young chap underneath ours he must of thought seeing the GB &#55356;&#56812;&#55356;&#56807; sticker were getting the ferry he crawled out from underneath we politely to him to go which he did. So take care check your vehicles.


It seems the immigrants are targeting Ouistreham again, Any members local just be on your guard 

Channa


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## Pauljenny (Jun 14, 2018)

Thanks Andy,
We landed there last September. There were knots of young hoodied men mooching around. The cops were circulating in vans, moving them on.
We decided to return from Santander, this May  and had a delightful cruise.
No sign of any trouble by the dockside.
We'll probably return via Santander.
What with the hassle and reduced speed limits, It.'s worth the extra cost, to avoid France.

S.O.D.D.E.M.. The French no longer seem to welcome  us Brits as warmly, anyway.
.


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## Byronic (Jun 14, 2018)

Au contraire, Santander and Bilbao ports have had migrant issues.

Even at the height of migrant issues last year at Calais people would report
no issues one day, then the reverse reported by someone a day later.

The French attitudes don't just change overnight, they have always
welcomed people that welcome them. If someone goes to France
with an even faintly discernible predetermined antagonistic attitude 
they'll soon sense that.


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## Pauljenny (Jun 14, 2018)

Good for you Byronic . Long may you continue to have happy and convivial experiences over there.


We have spent at least 6 weeks a year, for the last 18 years, travelling through France, on our way to and from Portugal.

We have a fair command of colloquial motorhome French and until about 3 years ago, got on famously with people we encountered.
There seems to be a new generation of retirees,buying motorhomes. The Holland Government and the Marie Le Pen movement seems to have given many of them a a right wing, xenophobic, almost fascistic  point of view. We felt excluded.

When we found fresh labels on an aire, 200 metres from the Lion beach war cemetery, promoting a movement against,  " the Anglo Saxon invasion ", we realised why the 3 French vans, that we'd shared the weekend with, refused to meet our eyes or respond to our " Bonjour s ".
They all left together,using the Bourne.
When we drove on , there was a freshly  applied sticker ,over the, " All the Aires" ,inspection sticker... We took that as personal .
S.O.D.D.E.M


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## Byronic (Jun 14, 2018)

Yes but come on Paul you mentioned the 'French' in your first post,
but in your second post you are selective in singling out French 'retirees 
with motorhomes' that are displaying the unsavoury attitudes you
describe. 

You may well be correct in identifying a right wing presence
making itself felt in France but I seem to think this is happening 
throughout much of Europe, represented most notably by the Jobbiks, 
the new Italian government, those lurking in the Spanish political 
background, not to mention groups with similar aspiring ambitions here.

But again then those stickers might well have been applied by a sad bunch of one,
possessed of the same sort of thinking and action that certain people in a typical British 
seaside town might resort to if they thought they were being inundated by a 
load of freeloading wild campers from somewhere else.


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## alcam (Jun 14, 2018)

Sorry to denigrate the population of France , or any other nation , because of a sticker somewhere is frankly dreadful .
To be fair not so unusual on here


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## Wully (Jun 14, 2018)

But you must admit the   and  are good I felt welcome when just pottering around the wee villages towns but not so in bigger towns cities think that’s the same here. Came across a large French family one night we were out for dinner and spent one of The nicest evenings ever I now feel if I meet a French family here on holiday that I would show them some good old Scottish  hospitality. It confuses people with negative attitudes when you be nice even when there not I find that gets on there goat more than being aggressive back. French people I think are very distrusting towards Brits at first.


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## 1807truckman (Jun 14, 2018)

Hi, I was waiting in a car park near the ferry terminal last September and there were a group of about 8 hoodied young men circulating, the police were patrolling and moving them on but  several times 1 went behind my van but soon moved when I reversed towards him, they were nowhere to be seen the next morning when I returned to meet up with the rest of the race team who had spent the night inside the port, I moved away to a village 15 minutes drive away and parked up for the night in a car park next to the tourist information office.

Graham


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## Fazerloz (Jun 14, 2018)

Thanks for the warning. If one gets under my van I will head South immediately.


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## Pauljenny (Jun 14, 2018)

alcam said:


> Sorry to denigrate the population of France , or any other nation , because of a sticker somewhere is frankly dreadful .
> To be fair not so unusual on here



I take folk as I find them. 
We've noticed a change in attitude amongst the people we meet on the aires.

Maybe we've been unlucky with our sampling of the population.
Maybe it's because we're older than most of the folk with their shiny new vans, that we meet nowadays.
Whatever.
If we feel we're unwelcome, we'll spend our hard earned elsewhere.
S.O.D.D.E.M !


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## Pauljenny (Jun 14, 2018)

1807truckman said:


> Hi, I was waiting in a car park near the ferry terminal last September and there were a group of about 8 hoodied young men circulating, the police were patrolling and moving them on but  several times 1 went behind my van but soon moved when I reversed towards him, they were nowhere to be seen the next morning when I returned to meet up with the rest of the race team who had spent the night inside the port, I moved away to a village 15 minutes drive away and parked up for the night in a car park next to the tourist information office.
> 
> Graham




Yeah,
We were there on the 12th.. Could have been the same lot ?
They didn't seem to have any luggage, but had mobile phones. How do they manage to charge the batteries and top up the credit?
Someone must be supporting them?


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## roamingman (Jun 14, 2018)

You have to remeber a lot of French people, not all, do not forgive us for destroying their navy in the war.  But I used to drive HGV's over 40 years ago, and met some wonderful French people.  Been back a few years ago still found good people.

Same in Scotland some do not like us, again not all, have some good Scotish friends in the UK and Scotland.

Same in Germany, you will always find good and bad people where ever you go.


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## runnach (Jun 14, 2018)

The French are remarkably like the British very fierce in their values and beliefs bordering on stubborn.

re meeting people for the first time I always found (unless in a café where its service) the French very guarded not rude but suspicious like an invisible wall when they have sussed you out that wall drops and you have lifelong friends in some cases. Conversly the Brits I think are more trusting until crossed.

The guarded nature of the French is nothing to do with us being Brits they are like it with each other.

I only had one frosty experience where it was apparent the lady interviewing me in a Assidic ( Job centre ) made it clear I should be home in England.

She put English as my second language and labelled me conversational ...at which point I had a premonition how things were going 

Channa


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## Tezza33 (Jun 15, 2018)

I don't mind the French not liking me, the English haven't liked me for 67yrs:sad:


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## Deleted member 56601 (Jun 15, 2018)

I came home via Ouistreham a few days ago and there are a lot of gendarmes and armed military near the port. We overnighted at Hermanville, a 15 min drive away, and had no bother.
Re French attitude - we lived there for 8 years and go back quite often and still find everyone to be as friendly and polite as they always were - can't say the same for some of the Brits we meet.


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## Fazerloz (Jun 15, 2018)

I know of at least one Brit who likes France, but wants to come back. Any guesses who.


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## Pauljenny (Jun 15, 2018)

Fazerloz said:


> I know of at least one Brit who likes France, but wants to come back. Any guesses who.



Voldemort.... You little mischief!


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## Byronic (Jun 15, 2018)

Fazerloz said:


> I know of at least one Brit who likes France, but wants to come back. Any guesses who.



If I'm correct in my guess, then your quip perhaps should be written in the past tense,
because the way things are turning out here, he might well have changed his mind by now.


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## barryd (Jun 15, 2018)

I also saw one of those Anglo invasion stickers on an Aire in France last summer.  Wondered what it was all about.

However being a rabid remainer I stuck EU Flag hearts all over the van and the bike last year and I found our treatment and the attitude towards us even better than normal.    It became a bit of a talking point.  Ive always got on really well with the French though.  There is the odd miserable old duffer but we have plenty of them in the UK.  We even got invited to a family party in the Pyrenees last summer when wilding on the Cirque de Troumouse.  We felt like Rock stars, everybody wanted to talk to us.


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## Deleted member 74361 (Jun 15, 2018)

Concentrating on the port aspects of the thread, we have used Dunkirk-Dover-Dunkirk for 6 years and, unless it has changed this year, we have never seen an immigrant/asylum seeker.

I have posted elsewhere that I believe that it is because there is only  ferry every 2 hours, so no queues/slow traffic so no chance for them to board, but I suppose that applies to Ouistreheim and Santander.

Geoff


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## runnach (Jun 15, 2018)

Fazerloz said:


> I know of at least one Brit who likes France, but wants to come back. Any guesses who.


 Rumour has it sneaking about Cadwell Park ...

Channa


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