[ad_1]
Thousands of truckers who have waited several days for permission to cross the English Channel have had to spend Christmas in the cab. No one is admitted to France without a negative corona test.
Thousands of trucks are parked along the M20 motorway in Kent County, waiting to cross into France.
Thousands of truckers have been stranded since Sunday when France closed its border after a new contagious corona mutation was discovered in Britain. Only on Tuesday did the two countries agree to allow cross-border transport of goods again. But the requirement is that all drivers have a negative result for the crown in order to be admitted to France.
In the past few days, soldiers have been going from truck to truck and quickly testing drivers. More than 10,000 tests had been carried out on Christmas Day, of which only 24 were positive, British Transport Minister Grant Shapps said on Twitter.
The anger among the stranded truckers has been great and many are directing their anger towards France. One of those who desperately wants to get back to his family is Marcin, who lives on the outskirts of Warsaw.
The British government claims that truck drivers receive hot food and drinks. The Dover Coast Guard has delivered 3,000 hot meals, 600 pizzas, 2,985 lunch boxes and 17 popsicles of water. In recent days, seven trains fully loaded with food were also dispatched from London to stranded Salvation Army conductors.
On Thursday and Friday, a couple of thousand trucks were able to cross the English Channel into the French port city of Calais, either by ferry or through the channel tunnel, writes AFP.
But on Christmas Day, there were still around 5,000 trucks parked in a closed section of the M20 motorway or at nearby Manston Airport, the BBC reports.
