Families were scrambling to flee France last night amid fears new quarantine rules will cause thousands of children to miss the start of the school year.
Pupils who do not return to the UK by Tuesday night will still be self-isolating at home when the majority of schools go back on September 2.
But with limited capacity on flights, ferries and the Eurotunnel, many will have no choice but to stay in France – or pay high prices for some of the remaining tickets.
In one instance, a British couple who paid £1,000 for business class Eurostar seats and a family who drove for 12 hours are the among thousands forced to flee France and get home before 4am tomorrow when the country is added to the UK quarantine list.
The holidays of up to 500,000 Britons have been ruined by the government’s 11th hour move as they try to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days once they return to the UK.
Some tourists had less time to avoid quarantine after the Scottish and Welsh governments demanded the rules be introduced a day earlier.
Meanwhile, France is likely to impose to impose tit-for-tat quarantine restrictions from Monday for people arriving from Britain, meaning British travellers will have to self-isolate on arrival there too.
People queue in line to check-in for a British Airways flight to Heathrow Airport on Friday at Nice airport, southern France
Holidaymakers Stuart and Anna Buntine spent nearly £1,000 on the Eurostar get home from France on Friday.
Mr Buntine, 58, said outside St Pancras: ‘We didn’t get our notification until this morning, where we were staying in Burgundy there wasn’t a lot of internet.
‘I went to bed last night thinking it was all OK, woke up at 7am to find we had to get back here pretty sharpish.
‘We couldn’t get tickets, all the sites had crashed. We had to buy business class tickets back today so it’s cost nearly £1,000. It is what it is.
‘It’s a bit of a b****r but we can’t do much about it can we?’
Mrs Buntine added: ‘We left here with our eyes knowing that it was a possibility, so we decided we’d take that risk.’
The couple, who have a farm in the Midlands and run a sports events company, said they were originally due back on Monday but needed to return sooner due to a work event within the quarantine window.
Children required to quarantine on return from holiday must be back in the UK by Tuesday, or they will be unable to return to school on September 2
Up to 500,000 Britons have had their holidays ruined, while official estimates suggest some 160,000 Britons are trying to leave France before Saturday
Meanwhile, French officials have suggested the country will impose quarantine restrictions of people arriving from Britons ‘within days’, sources suggest
‘Reciprocal arrangements are common in these situations and these are likely within days,’ said the French government source
It comes after the UK insisted that anybody arriving from France from 4am on Saturday will have to spend two weeks self-isolating
Last night, Grant Shapps sparked chaos by incorrectly saying that it would apply to people who ‘come back from Sunday’, as opposed to Saturday
The Department of Transport was forced to quickly clarify the correct day
The Office for National Statistics says 20 per cent of adults have abandoned plans for trips abroad. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said an estimated 160,000 tried to return from France yesterday.
Shapps sparked chaos last night when he announced the dramatic step to add France to the quarantine list, but suggested it would only apply to people who ‘come back from Sunday’.
The Department for Transport then clarified the restrictions would come into force tomorrow instead amid accusations that Nicola Sturgeon demanded quarantine was imposed on France tomorrow to ‘flex her muscles’.
In more bad news for 신용불량자인터넷신청 British holidaymakers, Greece could soon be added to the quarantine list, after a spike in its infection rate, with a record 235 cases recorded on August 12. Daily new cases in the country were in the 30s towards the end of July.
Families returning to the UK from France or another blacklisted country after 4am today risk a £1,000 fine and a criminal record if they send their children to school when they are meant to be in a 14-day self-isolation.
Parents will not be fined by head teachers or have their children marked as officially absent if they are observing the quarantine.
People queue in line to check-in for the cross channel ferry in Calais on Friday as around 160,000 Brits scramble to get back from France before quarantine restrictions come into force at 4am of Saturday
But Home Office rules say returning travellers should not go to work or school – and officials have vowed rigorous enforcement.
It means teachers will be banned from going back to the classroom if they are still self-isolating when term begins.
The National Education Union recently demanded that teachers who are in quarantine should receive full holiday pay if they cannot work from home. Schools have been asked to make sure remote learning facilities are in place to help pupils who have to self-isolate in the first week of term.
It comes after Boris Johnson vowed to make the reopening of schools a ‘national priority’ following months of disruption.
Yesterday former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith criticised the Government’s handling of the French quarantine fiasco. He said: ‘I would have preferred it if this had been done in a more nuanced way.
‘Rather than slapping the quarantine across the whole country, it would have been better to do it in a phased way, with the most badly hit regions first. I am concerned many teachers will be affected by this decision at a time when they are needed back in schools.’
