Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­

On arriving at Marseille airport on a flight from Italy I joined a queue to pass through an automated control for holders of biometric passports. But my passport was rejected.

Not being prepared to re-queue, I presented my passport to a policeman who scanned it and let me through.

When I asked why he could scan it but the automated control couldn’t, all he could say was that he didn’t think the automated control could read British passports!

On another subject, a couple of months ago my wife and I took our French granddaughter from Paris to London on holiday. Her mum – our daughter – had filled in an Autorisation de sortie du territoire (AST).

At the French frontier control the officer refused to believe the document was an original.

The policeman was convinced it was a photocopy, which could be easily falsified. It took the assurance of our granddaughter (who is eight), the production of her return ticket and the common sense of a colleague to convince him.

Peter Vass, Montpellier