France has been included in a category of its own in the Government's travel list system as the double-jabbed travellers from the EU country will be the only ones required to still isolate upon arrival into the UK. Rules regulating the entry of residents and citizens from amber list countries are due to change on Monday as most coronavirus lockdown measures are eased but new rules for France were announced on Friday evening. LREM! MEP Veronique Trillet-Lenoir hit out at Boris Johnson's Government for the "inconsistent" move as she said the concerns expressed about the spread of the beta variant of Covid from mainland France are unfounded.
Asked about the French Government's reaction to the move, Ms Trillet-Lenoir told the Today programme: "I am sure the decision will be very difficult to understand.
"It is slightly inconsistent with the threatening lifting of most COVID-19 legal restrictions in England from Monday.
"I fully understand the concern of British nationals and I'm wondering, as a medical doctor, why impose such restrictions on entries from one country to another where the infection rate is soaring much higher?"
She continued: "The beta variant is right now absolutely not detected in mainland France but only in some French overseas territories such as those in the Indian Ocean.
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"I'm wondering whether the British authorities might be concerned about the known low-protective capacity of the AstraZeneca vaccine against this variant.
"But again, it is not present in France, in mainland France, at all."
Today presenter Mishal Husain however cast doubts on the assertion, saying: "At all? Are you saying there are no cases in mainland France?"
Ms Trillet-Lenoir responded: "There are no more cases in mainland France. The variant is located in La Reunion, which is an Indian Ocean island both very far away from France and England.
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"So it's really difficult to understand from a sanitary point of view."
The LREM! MEP added: "I'm wondering whether the Prime Minister wishes to cast doubt on vaccination and, what would be even worse, deprive British nationals of reuniting with their families.
"I think there's a misunderstanding on the beta variant or maybe it is used as a reason to find new rules."
Ms Husain however noted recent data showed at least 2,000 cases of the Beta variant had been recorded in mainland France over recent weeks.
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A travel expert on Saturday suggested France may have been added to the red list but plans had to be shelved because of the high number of entry and exits points from the UK making hotel quarantine logistics "impossible"
Association of Independent Tour Operators' expert Gemma Antrobus told BBC Breakfast that people will "make the decision on what's best for them" over travelling from Monday.
Ms Antrobus added: "I do think that it just doesn't help with the number of entry and exit points to France, and it's possibly why France didn't go directly on to a red list, because of those different entry and exit points - being able to take Eurostar across on the train, being able to go from the ferry ports, and also being able to fly.
"The ability to put in hotel quarantines at those points or arrange logistics around them is possibly the reason why it didn't hit red straight away, because it's just going to be logistically impossible to do that by Monday."