ورد وزير النقل الفرنسي على اقتراح ليز تروس بأن فرنسا بحاجة إلى إصلاح الوضع "الذي يمكن تجنبه وغير المقبول".
قالت P&O Ferries إن الأمر يستغرق ما يصل إلى أربع ساعات لتصفية عمليات التفتيش الأمني ذات الصلة في دوفر ، مضيفة أنه إذا فات الركاب عبارتهم ، فسيتم حجزهم في المعبر التالي المتاح.
The French transport minister, Clément Beaune, has hit back at the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who had demanded France fix the “avoidable and unacceptable” situation at Dover.
In a tweet, Beaune said on Saturday afternoon:
The French authorities are mobilised to control our borders and facilitate the traffic as much as possible. I discussed this constructively with my counterpart [Grant Shapps]. But France is not responsible for Brexit.
While those queueing to cross the Channel are still facing three- to four-hour waits, jams on many routes in the south-east have cleared, according to the AA.
The AA Route Planner is still issuing a traffic warning to holidaymakers heading towards the Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone, but only a few isolated pockets of heavy traffic remained elsewhere by about 5pm on Saturday.
Roads are expected to be much quieter on Sunday, but a backlog of freight remains to be cleared.
Jack Cousens, the head of roads policy for the AA, said: “The picture throughout the day has been one of steady improvement.
"كان المسافرون المتجهون إلى منازل العطلات بعيدًا عن الجنوب الشرقي في وقت سابق اليوم قد شعروا ببعض الازدحام في وقت الغداء وحتى وقت مبكر من بعد الظهر ، ولكن قوائم الانتظار هذه أصبحت الآن
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who is running to become the next Tory leader and prime minister, has just reiterated her claims that France is to blame for logjams at Dover, claiming French authorities “had not put enough people on the border”.
In an interview with Sky News, Truss seemed to reject the suggestion that Brexit was to blame, and said “a lack of resource” on the French side was causing the long queues.
Natalie Chapman, from haulier group Logistics UK, said some lorry drivers had waited “in excess of 18 hours” to cross the Channel.
She told the PA news agency:
There are two main issues. First and foremost, the welfare of those drivers, and the second part is that this is one of the most important trade routes for us in and out of the UK and we want to keep trade flowing, so this is obviously causing us significant issues as an industry.
Chapman blamed a number of factors for Saturday’s travel chaos on Kent’s roads, including a lack of resourcing at French border control, increased traffic due to problems with airlines, and Brexit changes which mean longer processing times for people crossing the Channel.
She added:
As I say, the cause was that lack of resource yesterday but also, of course, it takes a lot longer to process through traffic than it used to.
You used to, prior to Brexit, just wave your passport and they may or may not be looked at, but now every one is checked and stamped.
French regional prefect Georges-François Leclerc said that at midday, out of the 9,000 to 10,000 vehicles scheduled to pass from Dover to France on Saturday, 60% had passed without any issue.
Vehicles had to wait about an hour and a half during the morning and later for only about 45 minutes, Leclerc said on BFM TV.