# Alcohol Spain-France



## MIKEJ (Apr 10, 2006)

I have been told that it is illegal to take alcohol into France from Spain. As I am in Spain at the moment and intended to buy wine in Spain and take home to the UK through France, is this correct?


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Never had a problem Mike.
Always bring a dozen bottles of Spanish Brandy for cooking.

The rule might be similar to many EEC countries. Enough for personal consumption but any more and it's taxable.

Ray.


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## eddied (May 9, 2005)

*Incorrect info*

 Ciao, who in heavens name gave you that sort of info???
EU regs/free movement of goods/persons/etc applies.
Nobody would stop me carrying my wine from Italy to UK thru France.
saluti,
eddied


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## peedee (May 10, 2005)

I have heard of the French clamping down on goods purchased in Andorra but not from Spain but there again the French are a law unto themselves. They illegally banned British beef for years and, as far as I am aware, still do.  

peedee


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## savannah (May 1, 2005)

I agree...... eddied is completely right, I travel to the UK at least twice a year no problems......HOWEVER it is completely different from andorra as that country IS NOT in the E.U........as I found out to my cost many years ago !
Lynda


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## cronkle (May 1, 2005)

When we were stopped and searched near Amiens by the French customs I asked what they were looking for. The officer politely explained to me that I had been stopped because we were in a British van and he said that their experience was that people coming up from Spain were more likely to be carrying a lot of booze. (They had asked how long we had been away and where had we been and we had told them we had been to Spain.)

I asked what they considered 'a lot' and he trotted out the same allowance as British customs work to. If we had been carrying a load of French booze he would not have been concerned as _we had not imported it into France._

That sort of thing may be what you have heard about.


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## inkey-2008 (May 24, 2008)

Last spring we were stopped coming in to France from Spain and asked if we had cigs and booze, we do not smoke so ok there and I said we had some wine but not a lot and he waved us on.

They were stopping quite a few vans that day but it is the only time we have been stopped.

Andy


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## Manchego (Sep 26, 2009)

I should be just a little bit careful. It appears that the french customs have adopted some of the tricks that our lot use to get up to. They are apparently putting limits on how many cigarettes you can bring through france. It doesn't seem to matter to them that they are duty paid or not. The fact that it's against EEC rules doesn't seem to bother them one jot.


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## Korky555 (Dec 22, 2009)

I know there is a new clamp down on taking cigeretts through France and the french customs stop and search the motorhomes not only at the border but right up through france and no doubt if they stop you and find drink as well you never know what the french will do, you are now only allowed to carry 200 cigs through France but drink its ?????


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## randonneur (Jan 25, 2007)

Korky555 said:


> I know there is a new clamp down on taking cigeretts through France and the french customs stop and search the motorhomes not only at the border but right up through france and no doubt if they stop you and find drink as well you never know what the french will do, you are now only allowed to carry 200 cigs through France but drink its ?????


We came through Irun on Monday and the French Police were stopping British cars/vans at the Border, they were also on the N10 just outside St Jean de Luz. The French put the Tax up on cigarettes etc some time ago and do not like anyone bringing them into France from Spain where they are a lot cheaper.


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## Manchego (Sep 26, 2009)

Actually there is no law that says you can only have 200 cigs in france. Under the free trade laws in the EEC you can have as many as you like as long as they are for personal use and are duty paid in the EEC. It's just the french making up the rules as they go along as usual. Our lot use to do the same before someone took them to the european court. What i don't understand is why they seem so intent on doing our goverment a favour, it's just not like the french. I mean it's obvious we are not going to be selling the cigs or booze to french people, so what's there motivation ?.


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*Wine*

There is a newish Law in France, the part I know is....

You are not allowed to transport more than 90 litres of wine and 10 litres of spirits or eau-de-vie, per private vehicle, not per person. There are some other limits but not sure of what they are.

So in other words, say there are four of you in a car or motorhome. It is against the French law to have more than 90 litres of wine in the vehicle.

You will see more and more Douanes doing stop checks at the roadside. We saw one French motorhome heading towards spain being searched thoroughly by four Customs officers, including body searches and sniffer dogs. But we do not know the exact circumstances, they could have course been looking for something more sinister.

TM


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## peedee (May 10, 2005)

Manchego said:


> Actually there is no law that says you can only have 200 cigs in france. Under the free trade laws in the EEC you can have as many as you like as long as they are for personal use and are duty paid in the EEC. It's just the french making up the rules as they go along as usual. Our lot use to do the same before someone took them to the european court. What i don't understand is why they seem so intent on doing our goverment a favour, it's just not like the french. I mean it's obvious we are not going to be selling the cigs or booze to french people, so what's there motivation ?.


Sacrebleu! What are the froggies doing to the roastbiffs :lol:

peedee


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## linal (Mar 14, 2006)

Hi Would it be a good idea for any concerned to contact the French Embassy & ask them what are legal limits concerning alcohol/tobacco bought in an EC. country & travelling thro. France to the U.K. ?

If the reply was positive ask for a reply in French as well as English to show to whoever stops you.

Not forgetting to post the French reply on here for people to print .

Alex.


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## lalala (Aug 13, 2009)

We were stopped after visiting friends in the Dordogne so that was a good distance from the Spanish border. The douaniers were looking for alcohol and cigarettes. They were very polite and let us go on our way without a search. A friend was stopped at the last peage on the A16 before Calais and searched. It does seem that it is often at the autoroute peages that the douaniers wait.
lala


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## camper69 (Aug 30, 2007)

*Re: Wine*



teemyob said:


> You are not allowed to transport more than 90 litres of wine and 10 litres of spirits or eau-de-vie, per private vehicle, not per person. There are some other limits but not sure of what they are.
> TM


teemyob

Where did you get that information from ? My wife is going to be very disappointed.

Derek


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

*Re: Wine*



teemyob said:


> There is a newish Law in France, the part I know is....
> 
> You are not allowed to transport more than 90 litres of wine and 10 litres of spirits or eau-de-vie, per private vehicle, not per person. There are some other limits but not sure of what they are.
> 
> TM


Not doubting your word Trev, but how does that square with people day tripping to Calais and transporting van loads back to the docks and then to the UK, Alan.


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

8O You mean folk drink alcohol here!!!!!.......


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## Boff (May 10, 2005)

*Re: Wine*

Hi!



teemyob said:


> You are not allowed to transport more than 90 litres of wine and 10 litres of spirits or eau-de-vie, per private vehicle, not per person.


This is not true.

There is no limit per vehicle (except of course the max. allowed mass and the axle loads of the vehicle). There is not even a direct limit per person, as long as it can be proven that the alcohol or tobacco is for personal use.

There are however *lower limits* to the guide levels that every EU member state _must accept_ as for personal use. These are:

800 cigarettes
400 cigarillos
200 cigars
1 kg of tobacco
10 litres of spirits
20 litres of fortified wine
90 litres of wine (of which, a maximum of 60 litres of sparkling wine)
110 litres of beer.
If you exceed these guide levels, you may be asked for proof that they are for personal use only.

There are a few more temporary restrictions, but these affect only new member states like Estonia, Bulgaria etc. Not Spain! Details see here: Travelling in Europe

However, especially along the French-Spanish border there is the issue of *Andorra.* Andorra, although completely surrounded by EU members France and Spain, is not an EU member, so the above mentioned limits do not apply for Andorra.

So if you buy any of the mentioned items in Spain and want them bring home through France, make sure you keep the receipts so you can prove they were purchased in Spain and not in Andorra.

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## skiboycey (May 21, 2009)

I can probably illuminate the law that 'teemyob' wrote about as I own and run a bar in the French Alps...

The law is not new and has been part of the French system since the modern drafting of the '5 levels of alcohol' laws just after the Second World War which also installed the Licencing system from levels 1 (a restaurant) through to 4 (a nightclub or late night bar). I own both a Licence 1 and a Licence 4 and have had to attend courses so that I am aware of the laws on alcohol and tobacco.

The law being referred to relates to the payment of a special 'social tax' (Taxe de Solidarité Sur Les Alcools Et Tabacs) which all commercial outlets must pay in order to sell alcohol or tobacco for 'commercial gain'. Commercial gain can be very widely interpreted and can include just going to get the products for a friend though it would be rare to be prosecuted for this. However the Douannes and the 'flics' (cops) are as thick in France as everywhere else and seem to lack any ability to apply the law in the way the politicians who drafted it wanted so anything's possible.

What happens is that if you are a commerce you pay a tax per litre of pure alcohol purchased or per kilo of tobacco products. From memory (I can't be bothered to go and find an invoice right now) the alcohol tax is around 15 euros per litre of pure alcohol or about 4.30 euros on a bottle of vodka, for example. The tobacco tax is much higher but I don't sell it so don't know exactly what it is. When you go to buy alcohol for commercial use the tax is paid with the purchase and you then get a special stamp on the invoice which is put alongside your vehicle registration number. This stamp give you the right to transport the alcohol to the place of sale and is valid only on the date of purchase. If the brewery delivers they pay the tax for you. When you get the Douannes controlling your bar they will get all your alcohol out of the stock room and check it against your factures to make sure you've been buying the stock from an approved supplier and paying the tax. Any bottles bought from, for example, Switzerland or the UK cannot be sold in France as the tax will not have been paid. This is very strictly enforced and the fines for transgression huge - in the order of 20 000 euros per incident...!

For private purchases there are exemptions made along the lines that 'teemyob' put. From memory it's 5 litres of spirits which would translate to about 2 litres of pure alcohol. I don't know what the limit is for tobacco. If you try to buy more than this in the Supermarket they should, in theory, issue you with a commercial invoice with the relevant stamp on it and the tax and you can, in theory, claim this back if it is for private use. I've never heard of this happening in practice though I've always wondered how the big warehouses in Calais manage to sell vans full of stuff to UK people without issuing this stamp and without paying the tax... Maybe the Douannes in Calais turn a blind eye because the Mayor has pressured them as it brings so much trade in?

So if you are going through France you could be prosecuted/fined for having above the limit of pure alcohol on board if you are not in possession of the aforementioned stamp. Now, of course, the law was never intentended to be used to harass UK tourists trying to take a bit of cheap plonk back to the UK from Spain but, as I said previously, the authorities in almost every country I've ever been to are thick, stupid or wantonly ignorant of the intentions of a law and it may just be that the Douannes have stumbled on a novel new way of raising some fines whilst conveniently getting away from the fact that it is really very difficult to catch professional bootleggers who really are smuggling on a large scale and to whom the law was originally aimed at.

Who knows? Like the UK Police and Customs they are a law unto themselves with very little idea of what the public really want them to do but every idea of how to look good to their superiors to gain promotion or extra funding.

And here endeth the lesson on French Victual Law... 

Good luck, Mark


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## Manchego (Sep 26, 2009)

That's interesting Skiboycey. I don't doubt that they are using those sort of laws to harass people. It is impossible though for them not to know that the free movement of goods and services is one of the basic tenents that the EEC was founded on. They must also know that european law supercedes these laws. They are therefore wantonly exceeding there powers aren't they. Do the french not care about that sort of thing or is it just brits that they target ?.


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Thanks Skiboycey, very informative.

Like pretty well all enforcers everywhere they will interpret the laws as they please until they are told not to. What the law they are misinterpreting actually says or is aimed to achieve will not matter. 

We should not be surprised at this, it is normal in the UK too, Alan.


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## mickyc (Jan 20, 2006)

We were stopped at a peage north of Carcassone the summer before last, and the cops looked through all our lockers (they even wanted to look in the cassette cupboard until I explained what it was!!)

The only questions they asked were

1) Where have you traveled from - Perpignan

2) Have you visited Spain? - No (slight white lie!!)

To my surprise they were totally uninterested in the fact that we had 2 passengers snoring away merrily in bed! 





Flak jacket on, zipped up, and ready for the usual suspects to burst into H&S action........................ :wink:


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## pneumatician (May 1, 2005)

*French Customs*

We have been stopped twice in France by French Customs no where near any border or port. On the last occasion the Van was X-rayed and checked by officials and a sniffer dog. Very interesting and thorough.

This was on the main route from Italy, Switzerland, Luxombourg etc.
They said they were looking for **** and booze.

We carry booze only and that is for our short term consumption.

Steve


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## skiboycey (May 21, 2009)

As Manchego points out the EU laws on free movement of trade should take precedence over the commercial laws of a member state regarding the movement of alcohol. However we all know what the UK Customs (or rather their political masters who pull the strings) thought of this observance when they were confiscating people's cars at Dover because they were deemed to be carrying a 'commercial load' of alcohol and not a quantity some bureacrat had decided was for 'private use'. Unfortunately they couldn't tell us how much was allowed because they weren't allowed to say as it would be against EU law which didn't define it! The same is true in France. 

Unfortunately I have to report that France has been busy learning a lot of lessons from the Glorious Leaders of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Britain over the last few years. Gone are the days when there were plenty of laws but everyone ignored them. What made France such a great country to actually live in, in short! Nowadays Sarkozy's Bully Boys are out in full force nicking everyone they can find for every minor traffic law or other indescretion they can find. Nobody seems any happier nor any safer in this Brave New World and I wish a few of the politicians would go to the UK to see what a miserable place the Politicians and Police have made it there. This crappy minutae of life that takes up so much of everyone's time in the UK was something we were always spared here but it seems if the population's well fed and getting richer they're happy to be slowly herded into conformity by the politicians with their grand views of how we should all behave.

I'd also like to say that the French will all start blocking motorways and demonstrating if they don't like something but that's mostly gone as well. One of the first things Sarkozy did and had learned from the UK government was to curtail the right to demonstration and pass laws allowing huge punitive fines against anyone stepping out of line. As any good General knows you only have to shoot a few of the enemy to make the rest of them unwilling to walk across the battle field and so it's been with the French - financially ruin a few of the key demonstrators and you can pretty much do what you like afterwards as most people are not prepared to risk everything even for strongly held beliefs. Thanks for teaching him this, Comrade Blair!

This, of course, has little to do with readers of this forum who probably by and large don't live here and don't run a business here but - and here's the rub - it does! Why? Because you start to get pulled by agressive and unfriendly douanes whilst minding your own business driving home with cheap spanish plonk on board and get fined for carrying alcohol without a commercial stamped facture... It's just one more facet of the general trend out here.

Incidentally if you keep receipts for everything you have and show that you didn't purchase any one set of items containing more than the allowed quantity of pure alcohol for private use I'd have thought you'd be able to fend them off. If not then don't accept any fines - elect to go to court, get the names and numbers of any agents, protest your innocence at the scene and be as awkward and difficult as possible if they try to confiscate anything. With luck they'll give up. Nowadays I'm not even friendly to the French cops or douanes as I know they're not doing anything useful other than trying to raise fines. All the cops ever manage to do here is turn up at least 4 times a week to make sure we shut the bar at EXACTLY 2am, not a minute later but the three or four times I've ever needed them for fights or because of stealing (including one chap I caught red-handed) they've been nowhere to be seen even after several phone calls. I dealt out my own punishment to the thief which involved a broken nose and other bodily damage which I think just goes to show how corrosive slack policing really is to society - people feel the need to be vigilantes with all the danger that poses.

La France d'autrefois est morte... Dommage...

At least it's still probably a lot nicer to live in than the UK has become over the last ten years and, as yet, we don't have council officials using terrorist laws to take pictures of people putting the wrong rubbish in the wrong wheely bin. I'm not holding my breath that we're not going that way in France, though...

Cheers, Mark


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*Details*

Thanks Mark for your very detailed replies.

Now my details.

I was aware of such a law and whilst we were in France heading towards Andorra a few weeks ago, I saw many signs clearly explaining the restrictions I mentioned (Yes it was 5 litres of Spirit Mark). I understand written French fairly well, to the extent of being able to comprehend the gist of most French Press.

I speak a fairly good level of French. However, I sometimes find it very difficult to understand local dialects and Patois.

So, I summonsed the help of a Manager in the Supermarket who with the exception of the (h)"O"tel french accent, spoke English Extremely well. I asked him to clarify the signs and he confirmed that the limits of 90 Litres of Wine 5 Litres of Spirit and so on were indeed per car and applied to all of France. Had nothing to do with our Proximity to Andorra.

Salutations! 
à la vôtre
à vôtre Sante
Sante
Salou (Hik)

TM
TM


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## skiboycey (May 21, 2009)

Teemyob be careful with your spelling!

You meant to say 'salut'. 'Salou' means 'Spanish whore' and is a bastardisation of 'salop' which means 'bitch' or 'whore' and is a fairly strong insult. The 'salou' makes fun of the Spanish accent.

Shows how much trouble you can get into without the right knowledge and is a nice metaphor for what we're talking about here about the alcohol laws and the poor UK tourist who is quite understandably ignorant of it whilst on holiday.

Something for those members of this forum who are always writing about how there's no excuse what-so-ever for non-obeyance of a law no matter what the circumstances. How I'd laugh to see one of them being pulled up and nicked for having 6 bottles of cheap Spanish spirits on board! 

I can hear my bar in full swing downstairs as I'm writing this and fully expect the usual 2am visit from the Keystone Cops who pretend to police our commune. I suspect they're in the station now making up a nice flask of coffee to keep them warm whilst they wait at the end of the road to see which naughty bar might lock its doors one minute late and thus be elligible for a fine. No sense in getting out sooner to see if there might be the odd criminal to catch, eh?!

Good night and watch out for those dodgy douanes...

Cheers, Mark


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

Out of interest Mark, which precise section of competing "policery" is it that harasses you at 02:00?

Les Douanniers, les Gendarmes, la Police Nationale ou peut être la Police Municipale?

Knowing France perhaps it is all of them!


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*All*



pippin said:


> Out of interest Mark, which precise section of competing "policery" is it that harasses you at 02:00?
> 
> Les Douanniers, les Gendarmes, la Police Nationale ou peut être la Police Municipale?
> 
> Knowing France perhaps it is all of them!


Not the Protection Police?


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## peeter (Aug 6, 2009)

*border controls*

They are more likely to stop French vehicles coming from Spain for cigarettes and booze.We have not, as yet, any problems bringing our shopping back accross the border which is an hour away and it always includes booze but not cigarettes.


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## chasper (Apr 20, 2008)

Thanks Skiboyski, very well written and informative.


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## Boff (May 10, 2005)

Hi,

for all those motorhomers having trouble with stubborn French officials, here is the French version of the EU website that I had previously linked. Maybe it helps if you print it, take it with you and show it to them if pulled out with Spanish booze:

Acheter des marchandises dans un autre État membre

Hope that helps!

Being a passionate non-smoker I am normally not interested in tobacco, but while looking into the alcohol issue I have found that in Spain there seems to be a significant market for _contraband cigarettes_. And the right to import goods for personal use within the EU free market of course does not apply to contraband goods. So smokers stocking up their *** supplies in Spain (or elsewhere) should make sure they don't buy from dubious dealers (car-boot sales etc.), and always keep the receipt.

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## Manchego (Sep 26, 2009)

Thank you for that Boff. Looking at the english version it says they are guide levels and cannot be less than and in the member state of destination, yet french customs seem to be telling people this is the maximum even though they are only transiting. I would have no problem if the law said, 800 cigarettes transit or destination. But it doesn't, does it ?. It really annoys me that they seem to twist things to suit there own interpretation.


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## Boff (May 10, 2005)

Hi!



Manchego said:


> ... yet french customs seem to be telling people this is the maximum even though they are only transiting. I would have no problem if the law said, 800 cigarettes transit or destination.


It does not matter whether transiting or not. If you are an _EU citizen_, and if you have _legally purchased_ up to the listed amount of said goods in any EU member country, then you may carry them through or into as many other EU member countries as you like, without giving any proof that these are for personal use.

The only things you might need to prove if checked are:

You are an EU citizen (by your passport or ID)
You have purchased the goods in an EU member country (by providing receipt)
They are not contraband goods (also by providing receipt).

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## skiboycey (May 21, 2009)

"Out of interest Mark, which precise section of competing "policery" is it that harasses you at 02:00? "

It's usually the Gendarmerie. The Police Municipal are the 'Big Eared Farm Boys' who I imagine were bullied at school but weren't smart or fit enough to get into the Gendarmerie so they've settled for a life of bothering people about parking, dogs barking, litter collection and a host of other things that are TERRIBLY important to them but that nobody else really cares about. In general you laugh at them and they go away as they have virtually no power at all. In fairness when we get a death of one of our clients due to avalanche, accident or medical misfortune (a chap of only 35 had a heart attack and died on the ski bus last week) they deal with this and I've always found them to be very professional and sympathetic with the victim's family. Just don't let your dog bark at them (mine does very loudly as he for some reason hates anybody who speaks French - and he's a French Dog!?). They are fine when they are bothering people about these small laws but they occassionally get ideas above their station and start to come in swaggering about and trying to cause trouble. At this point I usually phone up my very agressive lawyer who talks to them on the phone (or rather shouts at them) and they go away looking sheepish and I don't see them again for a couple of years.

The CRS I've only ever seen once when they did a raid on our bar. This consisted of about 12 varied Gendarmes, Douanes and CRS turning up in two mini-buses complete with a sniffer dog. I was in the hotel when they arrived and cordoned off the bar. Eventually they let the manager out who came and told me that they'd turned up mob-handed. Unfortunatley I'd been getting stuck into some rather nice single-malt so was a bit the merrier for it by then and the first thing I saw coming down the stairs to the bar was some Arnold Schwarzenigger clone standing outside the bar in jackboots brandishing a huge pump action short barrelled shotgun. 'You've obviously got a very small cock' I quipped, the alcohol working nicely to make sure I said exactly the wrong thing. The guy just glowered at me so I asked him if he wanted to shoot me first to avoid having to gun down the obviously large numbers of drug dealers that were going to come bursting out of the bar any moment now. This predicatably didn't go down well either but I was fuming that 12 agressive looking big blokes could have the right to come marching into my property and threaten my clients with guns. Plus I was drunk and have a big mouth. This doesn't make for a happy relationship with these types of wannabee paramilitaries. Anyway to cut a long story short they found nothing of interest after 2 hours of poking around and I've never seen them again since. Amusingly the only person in the bar with any drugs was my girlfriend's Dad who had some weed on him but as he's middle aged they didn't search him! As it was a bar full of typically irreverent English people it was most amusing to watch these 'tough guy' cops trying to bark out orders with nobody paying them any respect whatsoever and patting the sniffer dog on the head and trying to play with it! Anyway that's the CRS - one big pain in your arse every ten years but broadly not a problem.

Then we have the Gendarmerie. These guys are charged with upholding the law in the same way the police are in the UK. However they seem to think that dealing with theft, assault or other 'difficult' problems is way down the list and dealing with 'easy' ones like making sure bars shut on time, nicking motorists for going 5 k/mh too fast on mountain roads where you rarely see another vehicle and bothering people like me for endless reams of infantile paperwork is where 'true policing' really lies. As I mentioned earlier I've only called them for a 'real' crime about 5 times and every time they've been found wanting. The only time they ever showed any interest in pursuing anything was when a guy got knocked out in the bar for being a complete idiot and calling the biggest guy in the bar names. When he came around he tried to punch me for helping him out and ran off. 'Good ridance' we all said till the cops turned up next day and arrested me for 'failing to take care of a person that I had got drunk and not keeping him in the warm'. This was in spite of the fact that we'd refused to serve him because he was quite plainly off his head on drugs. Anyway it all went away after they found a very large drug stash in his apartment which they went to search whilst he was in hospital but not before making me feel like a criminal for trying to do my job and make a living. Anway I'll happily slag these inefficient, pompous, sefl-regulating and rude bureacrats off to anyone that will listen now and it serves them right for not delivering decent policing for the tens of thousands of euros I pay each year in corporation, personal and value added tax each year.

Please don't get the idea that France is any other than a lovely country to live in by and large. It's just that as with most countries there's always an element of the enforcement community who feel they are better than everyone else and who feel they have the right to interpret laws in whichever way suits them and who then ruin it for everyone else. It's why we need good politicians who work to protect us from the ravages of the adminstrative system and not the idiots we have in the UK and France right now who are working to facilitate it so that they can try to make us behave in a way which conforms with their own faddish beliefs. From talking to people who live in the UK it seems much of this type of anger is directed at the UK police for similar reasons so I suspect the problem is endemic wherever police are allowed to assess what they should be doing. I read a story this morning of a guy in the UK getting nicked for blowing his nose in a car whilst stopped in traffic with the handbrake on. He was done for 'not being in proper control of his car'. How do these idiots not see how much damage this causes them?!

Anyway rant over.... Come and visit if any of you are skiers. Here's my site - www.chaletchardons.com.

Cheers, Mark


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

How do you prove that cigarettes are for your own use? About twice a year I bring about 3-4000 back from Greece in a suitcase. They are half the price they are here and I never have to buy any in the UK thus saving about £800 a year.

Being doing this for years and never been bothered. But I am not breaking the law so why should I be?

Will probably visit Spain in the summer in the MH just to stock up so if I am stopped with a suitcase of **** how do I prove they are just for me?

BD


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

******

Open every packet and take one out?


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

*Re: *****



teemyob said:


> Open every packet and take one out?


Mind you if they catch me early in the morning when Im coughing my lungs out they might believe me. Filthy habbit. Wish I could pack in!


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

Well, Barry, when you run out of your current supply of foreign-bought coughers simply resist the temptation by not going to Spain/Greece/Andorra or wherever you can buy cheap contraband/counterfeit ****.

Stay in UK, don't buy any 'cos they're too expensive.

Voilá - no more coughing!


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

pippin said:


> Well, Barry, when you run out of your current supply of foreign-bought coughers simply resist the temptation by not going to Spain/Greece/Andorra or wherever you can buy cheap contraband/counterfeit ****.
> 
> Stay in UK, don't buy any 'cos they're too expensive.
> 
> Voilá - no more coughing!


I know your right. I have a cupboard full of the flipping things so I think, i cant give up until I smoke them. I smoke menthol so nobody I know will want them and then I end up abroad before they run out and buy some more!

Will power thats what it needs!


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

You really needed the will-power all those years ago when you started!

I managed to fend off peer pressure in the Fourth Form and when I made it into the Upper Sixth I felt very smug as the "macho" lads were trying (usually in vain) to give them up!


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