I swear this is a new development and I have never seen this before - the last time I arrived back in Paris from the States on Delta was New Year’s Day, for context — although I am sure someone will tell me it’s been in place for a while.
[EDIT TO ADD: the new (?) development in question is the installation of e-gates for incoming passport control at CDG Terminal 2E for Canadian, American, Singaporean, and possibly other passport holders.]
I just arrived this morning at CDG from Atlanta (on Delta into Terminal 2E, the normal gates that are right there, not the K or M gates) and things seemed a bit chaotic / confused as we exited the plane :
First there were some (pseudo-automatic) doors — four abreast that everyone coming from the plane needed to exit — these kept shutting arbitrarily and affixing a big red ❌ above the door and emitting an alarm, which meant that in practice, about one person would get through one of the four doors every few seconds. No one was there from the airport or security contractors to see what was going on.
Then as we got to immigration, there was definite confusion as to which lines Europeans vs Canadians/Americans went into to be directed to the correct immigration officer cabins. In fact, while the contractors at the entry to the line were sending people to certain lines, by the time we got up to the head of the lines (where it started zig-zagging through the rope and stanchions), almost everybody was in the wrong line and got instructed by the annoyed contractor on duty there to switch lines. (Purely by chance, I ended up in the correct Canadian / US line, although I am not really sure how, lucky me !).
Then the contractor at the very head of the line directed us to E-gates, where each entrant placed our passport on a scanner reader, and the gate opened automatically upon reading to let us into a little lock space - the subsequent door then opened after doing a facial recognition scan (you couldn’t start your process through your e-gate until the person preceding you was all the way out).
Then you went up to the immigration officer, where they had photocopied signs plastered everywhere saying (in English) “OPEN YOUR PASSPORT TO AN EMPTY PAGE FOR STAMPING.”
And sure enough, the police officer did NOT look at the passport — he didn’t