CIME card in France - a mandatory crew certificate?

In the French magazine article, one of the options (“d) une carte d’identité valable établie par l’autorité nationale compétente”) should be satisfied by any national ID card that is used and accepted across Europe in place of a Passport. Certainly the national agency that issues Passports should qualify as the “national competent authority”.
So it looks like this wording is being misused to force a new security check that isn’t really in the law.

Also, are we talking here about just going through security or whether this new card will allow the need for “handling”? Or both?

Finally, does this just apply to the pilot? What about passengers? There is no mention in the article about them.

Lot’s of room for abuse here.

There are commercial flights at La Rochelle, Limoges, Bairritz and Bergerac, to name just a few airports that thousands of average FFA aeroclub pilots would fly to for fun or a day out with their friends. All these airports gave a seperate gate for GA use and I doubt half of French pilots have ever heard of AOPA… let alone that they might need a crew card.

The FFA appear to this year have your “FFA card” as an “optional request”, which I asked to get, as it has previously been accepted at exactly those airports in lieu of your actual licence.

Perhaps the next incarnation could have a photo ID etc…??

I guess at least, it would help french pilots going to big european airport.
Once we (= jet crew) have been stuck at Lisbon crew security entrance because we had no uniform, neither airport pass (but of course valid license and passport). Sometimes shit happens and some airport security agent wants to do more, and we had to wait 30 minutes that airport manager let us go to access our jet.

Where does that leave non-French pilots? (or indeed French pilots who aren’t in AOPA France).

I contacted AOPA France, asking if they could provide a CIME card to members of foreign AOPA. (I am a member of AOPA Germany) Will keep you posted of the answer, if any.

The page linked in post #03 above states “a valid license and a membership with the association” as prerequisites. I assume “membership” means with AOPA France:

L’AOPA France et la DGAC se sont entendues pour permettre aux pilotes de tous types d’obtenir une Carte CIME : pilotes avion, Hélicoptère, ULM, peu importe, la condition de base étant de disposer d’une licence en cours de validité et d’être membre de l’association.

@ Peter

French police and gendarmerie can ask you for your ID anywhere and at any time in France, and it is a requirement to have ID on you, as in many European countries, so I don’t quite get the point of your post…??

Although I was and remain fundamentally anti-Brexit, I sometimes wonder whether it was inevitable due to basic differences in the relationship between individual and state.

Any government employee who demands that someone in the UK identify themselves and justify their presence within a certain distance of an airport is going to get told to get stuffed. The very idea is truly bizarre.

We’ve done this before and it’s a truly massive difference, the idea that a policeman is your boss rather than your servant.

@Graham – I know… its something that was brought home to me “during Covid”.

I’ll never forget being stopped at Gendarmerie roadblocks going for groceries, and thinking that this was the sort of thing that happened to me on work projects in tin-pot dictatorships yet here I was in Europe… surreal…!!!

I’ll also not forget that before legislation was passed during the second lock down, the UK actually had “guidance” rather than actual rules and laws, and unbelievably people were clamouring to be restricted with police enforcement, rather than use common sense… Even Pilots were on here and other forums berating those that were legally flying…!!!

It’s seriously changed my view of various governments.

Regards, SD..

Code des douanes
Chapitre IV : Pouvoirs des agents des douanes
Section 9 : Contrôle des titres (Article 67 quater
link

The douane can operate geographically:

• At the French border and 20km inside
• In the public areas of international ports, airports, railway stations, and bus stations (and in their vicinities)
• On cross-border motorways to the first toll station, even if past 20km
• At railway stations, at the first stop if it’s the first beyond the 20km, and any further station in the following 50km
• Within a radius of 10km of ports and airports that are designated border crossing points

It references an abrogated law which requires foreign nationals to be able to identify themselves (in addition to identity checks of French nationals); the douane apply this the same as the police judiciaire would have done “for the prevention and investigation of cross-border crime”. I’ve not looked into current police powers.

The last bullet point is the relevant one. The douane have scarily far-reaching powers, although I think this is the same for customs in all countries. I know of a gold smuggler banker who was arrested literally miles away from the Swiss border; I think in the 1980s the geographical area was much larger, 30 or 50km from any international transport infrastructure, covering >90% of the land surface.

Isn‘t this straying a bit off-topic?

What we‘re talking about here is the mandated carrying of something other than a government-issued ID which is normally carried by everyone wanting access to a personal aircraft, crew and pax. Requiring pilots (and pax???) to carry a separate, newly created form of ID requiring a securiy check before issuance. That is a whole new area of surveillance and freedom restriction that all pilot organisations need to protest in the strongest way.