Swedish customs pull Frenchman with two asses

You got a permit for those, mate?

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 1st July 2008 14:56 GMT

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A wandering Frenchman came to rue the day he ever attempted to get his two asses into Sweden, after customs officials demanded a veterinary examination of the pair costing €250, the Local reports.

For reasons not entirely explained, Jacques Abdelaziz from Brittany has spent the last two months travelling Europe with a couple of donkeys - Nounou and Toutoune - and everything had run on hooves until he caught a ferry from Denmark to Sweden on Sunday.

The problem was that the powers that be were "stumped as to the precise set of rules governing the temporary import of two asses to Sweden from another EU member state".

They eventually decided he lacked important documents required by Sweden’s Board of Agriculture, including the aforementioned vet's exam. Being French, Abdelaziz refused to cough for the once-over, and he thundered to local paper Göteborg-Posten: “If the boat had still been here I would have probably gone back to Denmark at once."

Suitably ashamed of their heavy-handed treatment of the nomadic donkeyherd, the officials stumped the required fee, the vet gave his asses the once-over, and he was on his way.

One harbour worker noted: “We couldn’t just send him back to Denmark. It’s actually a little shameful, there’s nothing human behind this. That’s just the way it is when everything hinges on a bunch of paper."

Abdelaziz was last seen travelling east towards Borås, at a leisurely 30 kilometres a day. He's not reported to be planning to set foot in Blighty, which is just as well as HMRC would certainly kick his asses back to Britanny unless he was able to produce biometric passports for the shifty-looking beasts of burden. ®

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