Diverting from destination to your 1st alternate is usually not an emergency
If you can’t land in 1st alternate due to lack of PPR and YOU opt to go to 2nd alternate that would be a serious undertaking: it will surely involve lot of freestyle flying than a well planned leg and if you add weather & fuel contraints, death or accidents are not far away…
Peter wrote:
The answer has to be NO otherwise any in-flight emergency would land you (no pun intended) in hot water. You must be able to land.
Of course, but a weather diversion to a planned alternate is not an emergency. I personally never plan a PPR airport as alternate without getting permission first.
… which however shows that the PPR is not really necessary in the first place… 
FWIW Vliegclub Rotterdam at EHRD are happy for me to show up on a diversion extra-Schengen without PN for handling with them:
I don’t think that is necessary, only if you are sure that you are visiting Rotterdam.
What a sensible reply; I’m tempted to go there another time just because they’ve been helpful :-)
The answer has to be NO otherwise any in-flight emergency would land you (no pun intended) in hot water. You must be able to land.
The PN, or lack of it, affects what happens to you post-landing.
Assuming the PN is for customs/immigration:
If/when the 9mm carrying people arrive if they are nice, they will let you stay overnight, or refuel and fly on, etc. If they aren’t nice, they could take action like a fine, although I don’t recall a case of a fine where it was a real “have to land” situation. I have heard of fines imposed but they were for “normal” arrivals where PN was simply not done. They can also force you to give another PN for a departure, meaning you have to stay in a hotel, perhaps.
We’ve done all this before but landing where CUSTOMS is needed could be a real problem. That particular situation should not arise again (explained in the thread) but that applies only to Germany.
The safe thing is to shoot off an email with the UK GAR attached and some covering text.
In this case (short flight) my alternate would be Shoreham
Thanks, Ibra. Noted, but I’ll use Rotterdam as the alternate as it’s in the right direction.
I think this is a long standing discussion, the short answer is YES
For Ostend alternates, I tend to pick 24h big ATC airfields as alternates, I would personally, pick Southend, Lille, LeTouquet or Rotterdam
Ostend probably have no clue where Maiden-Zeelend is? if you do that diversion, you should expect to wait more than 1h for lunch (or simply no one around to care, so going back to UK is not an issue )
I’m planning to fly EGTR Elstree-EBOS Ostend-EHLE Lelystad at the weekend.
EBOS is no PN for arrival from the UK, but I am hoping to use EHMZ Midden-Zeeland as my alternate, which is one hour PN for arrival from the UK.
Would you contact EHMZ/make a Gendec for the alternate case, or just divert and inform them on first contact that you need immigration after landing (and be prepared to wait an hour)? We’re stopping for lunch so it’s no problem to wait, I just don’t want any “trouble”.
I think France is still exceptional place for GA, the closest you can get to USA, ignoring the lack of private owners: no PPR and everything remains open for VFR/IFR with BP/Total Cards (assuming you can read the automate as it gets tricky to get someone to read it for you), you are just flying like a king not talking to anyone
Of course, there is some hassle to land at Nice on short notice and maybe Toussus after 2230LT but other than that the only limits are money & time flying budgets and sunset in some places (although no one cares where you land at SS+3h into the night with strong LED), you may have to file Orly for alternate if not in the mood to get to get PPR for every nearby PCL, it’s free for GA diversions
The tiny hassle for C&I PN is very UK/France specific (sometimes for Schengen during suspension) but still very manageable for diversion & mayday, it’s only a problem when you are flying “too much & too far” and to the “edge of flight & weather enveloppe”, most of people don’t go that far by definition: they fly 1h airborne between 11am and 15pm in CAVOK, so naturally won’t feel much of the heat from PN/PPR hassle, well maybe except the heat from the sun 
I will admit to only rarely facing any of the challenges you list.
Here in VFR I can just get in a plane ( Notams allowing) fly where I want to fly in France. No PPR unless there is a chance of no parking space or waterlogged runways. Generally, I pay little or no landing fees, no handling fees. But then for the most part I don’t attempt to go to Bordeaux Mérignac, Nice, Charles de Gaulles.
Most of the airfields I visit are open with or without ATS from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.
For night flying I do have to pay a higher landing fee for the PCL. Usually an average of €22.
But still plenty of places open and only occasionally PPR in order to make sure the PCL switches are left on when ATS leaves. But that is not at all airports.
For IFR I simply file a FPL and fly. Much quicker and easier now Peter put me on to Autorouter.
I fly IFR to go to a particular chosen destination.
I very rarely need to fly an in flight IFR FPL, but there is nothing stopping me doing so and no penalties. It is allowable under ICAO and EASA regulations. If I run into bad weather I can really on help from ATS to get me somewhere I can land safely. I know of no French pilot whose mind would be crossed for a moment, penalties, handling, landing fees or anything else. We are going to land where it is safe to do so. But I agree it would have to be an extreme circumstance to have to land at Charles de Gaulle although there have been a couple of emergency landings at Orly that I know of and quite a few at Nice. Although the last one I heard of at Nice was greeted with ATS asking if they could manage to reach Cannes instead. But when the answer was negative, they were assisted to land at Nice, a mechanic familiar with Robins was sent, the aircraft fixed and flown off the following day. As far as I know, not a centime was paid in fees, penalties, handling, or parking.
We need to bear in mind that airports in France are run as businesses/infrastructure or for the benefit of sports and leisure. Whichever it is there will be a budget which one needs to stick to. If there is little or no demand for a particular type of flying or a certain type of aircraft is too much trouble unless they pay a realistic price, then that is what they will do.
Some pilots at LFFK wanted an RNP approach. They raised the funds, had it designed and with help we now have an RNP approach, although our compromise was we lost a certain amount of parking, we have to raise about €6000 per annum to maintain it and the approach is restricted to either based aircraft or PPR via the Maire.
There are many things in the USA that I would like to see in Europe and some of them will be in the future. I would love to see the UK GAR system adopted throughout Europe.But I am nowhere near as down about flying in Europe as Mooney is. I avoid airports that want PPR or overcharge or whatever. But then I fly for fun not as a means of transport. The only time it crossed my mind that I might like a career as an airline pilot, I was 14.years old and listening to a careers adviser. The thought was quickly overridden by other careers which excited me more.
