Correct, you just walk off the platform and onto the concourse at STP, although there are customs and border officials lurking in case someone needs to be checked before leaving the secure area.
Not quite true - you go down an escalator to the departure lounge level where you go around the world for sport before coming out and going up some steps to street level.
Now, at Gare du Nord, you do indeed walk out the end of the platform.
It has always seemed like a political non decision, an easy scare tactic. Ppl are worried about "undocumented migrants", so politicians choose not to enforce documenting migrants so they can campaign on being tougher on "undocumented migrants" that they've created through deliberate inaction.
I believe the reason generally is that the capacity isn't there to enforce the checks. The system is a mess, because the lack of exit checks can lead to suspicion for travellers.
When you go SP-GdN you have UK exit control then Fr/Schengen entry control. Then, when you go GdN-SP you have Fr/Schengen exit control and UK entry control. It's just the same as an airport, except they bunch the controls on one or other side.
🤔 the last time I went SP-GdN (2023) the only passport check at the SP departure was a Eurostar check, not UK border force. I have never had exit checks at any UK airports, nor at Dover.
That's nonsense. 'Eurostar' don't check passports, and never have. What you may have thought was a Eurostar check was a UKBA check. As for airports/ Dover - you won't have left without showing your passport! That *is* the exit check.
I’ve not travelled in E* since Covid, do BF have a presence at departures these days or is it still E* check in staff who do the exit passport scan as at other exit points from the U.K.? (Eg UK passport control at Dover is always empty bc checks outsourced).
I don’t recall any checks, other than the PAF checks at St Pancras after checking in and before they make you sit in an overcrowded departure area but the last time I traveled was December 2019
I don't understand that at all. It must only be because they're done on the Fr side.
I've travelled from UK to Europe scores of times and never once had an exit control; in reverse, I've been checked every time (except from Ireland, obviously).
They’ve been doing this for years, also pre-Brexit. They also do it at Eurotunnel, and theoretically at Dover though there one is almost always waved through.
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Now, at Gare du Nord, you do indeed walk out the end of the platform.
UK border force does checks in France (I know someone based on Paris doing GdN, which would be a nice gig).
France also performs Schengen exit controls (like it would do at CDG say)
In St Pancras, the UK doesn't perform exit controls?
What are the checks in St Pancras for?
Weird, but I guess it must be a new post Brexit thing
I've travelled from UK to Europe scores of times and never once had an exit control; in reverse, I've been checked every time (except from Ireland, obviously).