Continental Europeans have gone so long — two decades — without internal border controls that the younger generation doesn't know what life is like with them. For a glimpse of the past, and the fortress mentality setting in after the Paris terrorist attacks, look no further than France's frontier with Luxembourg.

Five days after the Paris murder spree, the highway into Luxembourg resembled a truck parking lot, with a two-hour wait as the police stopped and, occasionally, searched vehicles.

"What a pain in the neck," said Alban Zammit, 43, a shaven-headed French truck driver who travels back and forth across the border with cargoes ranging from batteries to sacks of sugar. "Is it just to give people the impression of increased security?"