Must have been lucky, even on my non EU travels it has been painless. Longest probably being New York but it was still extremely sensitive at the time following the world trade centre attack.
Trust me....we have skipped past these queues while being assisted at the airport (our lass in a wheelchair gives us immunity from queuing ) and we always get called to an EU space first as the travellers at non EU are still being quizzed ...add in the language barrier too as well as incorrectly filled in travel paperwork...nightmare.
Didn’t our government accept a cheaper bid from a French printing firm for passports? Seems like corners might have been cut.
you get a nice stamp in your passport off the nice french police at dover,so far iv got 3 of them ,one at the front and two on the back page