Clearing Immigration at CDG

You will go thru Immigration into the Schengen Zone in Munich. You will go thru Customs in Paris after you collect your bags but that is just a walk through.

It doesn't matter what type of ticket you have. Your first port of entry into Schengen is where you go through immigration.

The flight from Munich to Paris is like flying domestically in the U.S.

Pam and Frank, thank you both for your responses above. I'm glad to hear that we will only have to go through immigration in Munich thus expediting the process of the time it will take to travel from CDG to our hotel in Paris.

Different airlines and tickets, means it's unlikely your suitcases will be checked through. You'll probably need to deal with gathering your luggage, walking past customs nothing-to-declare, and rechecking them in with Air France. The AF flight is a domestic flight.

Bets has pointed out an important concern - will United check bags all the way through
to Paris. If your itinerary is all on one ticket, they should. If not, they may or may not. At
the least, bring documentation of the MUC-CDG flight to UA check-in and see if they will.
If UA does not, you will have to reclaim bags as Bets has noted. If you have carry-on only,
no worries.

Star Alliance is in Terminal 2 at MUC, and just about everyone else is in Terminal 1. Whether
you have to claim bags or not, you'll change terminals. If you don't have to reclaim bags,
you may be able to take the inter-terminal bus, but you will definitely need to clear immigration
into Schengen zone in MUC upon arrival in T2 and probably a security check unless the bus
takes you between secure areas of T2 ->T1.

If you have to reclaim bags, you will exit secure part of T2 and walk through the Airport Center
to T1, then clear security to get to T1 gate.

5 hours is plenty, but the main thing is not leaving your bags in Munich...

Thanks Bets and Shoeflyer, I had always anticipated we'd need to get our luggage and go through both immigration and security as a part of this layover. I'm hoping that the five hour layover is more than sufficient to do all this; even if the United flight is delayed in arriving to Munich.

Shoeflyer, I appreciate the detailed info about the Munich Airport. I'm one of those individuals who likes to plan things out so I'll look up the arrival terminal for our Star Alliance flight and the departure terminal for Air France so we can plan ahead.