3 ms·

I'm not sure about what borders you're coming from, but I've been traveling a lot pre-pandemic between Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and did not have to show m

I'm not sure about what borders you're coming from, but I've been traveling a lot pre-pandemic between Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and did not have to show my ID at all at the border. Trains do start to ask for IDs, but this is unrelated to borders : it seems to become standard for oui sncf, even for internal trains, and probably the buses are on the same track for some reason.

southerntofu 5y ago
> and did not have to show my ID at all at the border Yes it's not exactly a physical checkpoint anymore. The "douanes" (border patrol) can control you on their whole national territory: for example they patrol and control a lot of people in train stations and on highways. > Trains do start to ask for IDs, but this is unrelated to borders I don't think it's unrelated to borders. Nation States across Europe are building their social control arsenal, and knowing who's going where is certainly part of it. Not many years ago you could buy a train ticket without having a name attached to it. Now for the past decades or so there's strict regulations forcing telecoms/transport providers to register information about everyone using their services, to fight terrorism they said (cough cough). I can at least speak for France where i know the politics pretty well. Since the late 80s there's been a resurgence of racist politics (lois Pasqua-Debré and the first massive waves of deportations) that's only been rising ever since. Government control everywhere (eg. Vigipirate armed military patrols, border patrols, cameras, asking for papers to get on a bus/train) is not just about border control, as the fucking psychopaths running the intelligence services want to know everything about everyone. But it's certainly related: border checks which had almost disappeared (except for drug smuggling) are now very common if you're not a white person, and there's thousands of cops (regular PAF and riot police CRS) employed at all times to ensure nobody's crossing the border into France, and that if they do they'll get caught somewhere else on the territory, imprisoned in inhumane conditions in one of the CRAs (for up to 90 days, up from 45 before Macron's presidency) and duly deported. Small example to prove my point: in the big cities in France (but also in Belgium and probably others), ticket checks in public transports are used as a means to arrest undocumented folks. They usually don't have money or ticket, so when they get checked the agents will call the police who'll get them arrested simply for failing to have papers. It's also become common in the past ten years to see actual police officers (not transport security/controllers) establishing checkpoints in metro stations and directly controlling the papers (not tickets) of anyone who's not white enough despite this being clearly forbidden by law. You may be interested to take a read at some articles about what's happening at the French borders (Calais, Ventimille, etc). Thousands of cops attacking people's camps, raiding squats and private properties, detaining people for "assistance to undocumented people" (a crime)... So many easily avoidable deaths, so much easily avoidable suffering. Usually french politics is a good barometer for how fascist Europe is on average (spoiler: very bad and it keeps getting worse).

southerntofu 5y ago

> and did not have to show my ID at all at the border Yes it's not exactly a physical checkpoint anymore. The "douanes" (border patrol) can control you on their whole national territory: for example they patrol and control a lot of people in train stations and on highways. > Trains do start to ask for IDs, but this is unrelated to borders I don't think it's unrelated to borders. Nation States across Europe are building their social control arsenal, and knowing who's going where is certainly part of it. Not many years ago you could buy a train ticket without having a name attached to it. Now for the past decades or so there's strict regulations forcing telecoms/transport providers to register information about everyone using their services, to fight terrorism they said (cough cough). I can at least speak for France where i know the politics pretty well. Since the late 80s there's been a resurgence of racist politics (lois Pasqua-Debré and the first massive waves of deportations) that's only been rising ever since. Government control everywhere (eg. Vigipirate armed military patrols, border patrols, cameras, asking for papers to get on a bus/train) is not just about border control, as the fucking psychopaths running the intelligence services want to know everything about everyone. But it's certainly related: border checks which had almost disappeared (except for drug smuggling) are now very common if you're not a white person, and there's thousands of cops (regular PAF and riot police CRS) employed at all times to ensure nobody's crossing the border into France, and that if they do they'll get caught somewhere else on the territory, imprisoned in inhumane conditions in one of the CRAs (for up to 90 days, up from 45 before Macron's presidency) and duly deported. Small example to prove my point: in the big cities in France (but also in Belgium and probably others), ticket checks in public transports are used as a means to arrest undocumented folks. They usually don't have money or ticket, so when they get checked the agents will call the police who'll get them arrested simply for failing to have papers. It's also become common in the past ten years to see actual police officers (not transport security/controllers) establishing checkpoints in metro stations and directly controlling the papers (not tickets) of anyone who's not white enough despite this being clearly forbidden by law. You may be interested to take a read at some articles about what's happening at the French borders (Calais, Ventimille, etc). Thousands of cops attacking people's camps, raiding squats and private properties, detaining people for "assistance to undocumented people" (a crime)... So many easily avoidable deaths, so much easily avoidable suffering. Usually french politics is a good barometer for how fascist Europe is on average (spoiler: very bad and it keeps getting worse).