Driving in France

• Check your licence is valid in France and whether you need an International Driving Permit from your country. Can take a month to arrive.
• Order a Crit'Air sticker if you are bringing your own car. Allow one to two weeks.
• Order a Chargemap pass if you are hiring an electric car and it does not come with one.
• Set up your parking, fuel and navigation apps at home, while you still have wifi and your usual phone number.
• Download offline maps for the regions you will drive in.
• Check whether your route crosses a low emission zone, and whether any Alpine tunnel you need is closed for maintenance.
• Print the France glovebox sheet and put it in the car.

This is when nearly everything goes wrong. Not on the mountain pass, not in Paris. In the first ten minutes, in a car park, at the first roundabout.

Off the ferry or the shuttle

Whether you land at Calais, Dunkirk, Dieppe, Le Havre, Caen, Cherbourg, St Malo or Roscoff, or roll off the shuttle at Coquelles, the pattern is the same. You have been sitting for hours, possibly overnight, you are in a queue of cars all moving at once, and within about ninety seconds of the ramp you will meet a roundabout.

That roundabout goes anticlockwise. You give way to the left. Every instinct built over a lifetime of driving in Britain, Ireland, Australia or New Zealand will tell you otherwise.

Out of the rental lot

Same problem, different setting. Add jet lag, an unfamiliar car and signage in a second language, and the exit road is not a forgiving place to work it out.

Before you move

• Say out loud which side you are driving on. KEEP RIGHT. It sounds silly. It works.
• Give the passenger a job: call "keep right" at every junction for the first hour. Not advice, a job.
• Load the route before you move, not on the ramp.
• Know your first two junctions without looking.
• Find the indicator stalk, the wipers, the fuel cap side and the fuel type while you are still stationary.

The first hour

• Every junction, every roundabout, every fuel stop. Pulling out of an empty car park is where instinct takes over, because there is no traffic to copy.
• Overtaking is on the left, and your mirrors are on the wrong side for it. Give it an hour.
• Port and airport exit roads are not a fair sample of French driving. They are busy, full of freight and full of other disorientated tourists. It gets calmer.
• But do not plan a long first leg. Calais to the south in one go, straight off an overnight crossing, is Not the best idea.

Priorité à droite

At some junctions, mostly rural and in older town centres, traffic joining from your RIGHT has priority. There may be no give way lines and no sign at all. This is the opposite of Britain, where an unmarked junction has no priority rule at all and drivers negotiate.

• A yellow diamond sign means you are on the priority road. The same diamond crossed out means that priority has ended, and now you should assume you have to give way to the right.
• No markings, no sign, a junction opening on your right: slow down and be ready to give way.
• On a roundabout the normal rule applies and you give way to traffic already on it, which comes from your left. A small number of old roundabouts work the other way and you have to give priority to cars Entering, but they are not common. Place de l'Étoile in Paris is the famous one.

Indicating is a legal duty here, not a courtesy

This one surprises British and Australian drivers more than any other rule, and it costs licence points.

• You must signal any change of direction or lane. That includes pulling out to overtake AND pulling back in afterwards, which is the one visitors forget.
• It also covers lane changes where the number of lanes reduces, entering and leaving a roundabout, and pulling out of a parking space.
• The penalty is a fine plus licence points, and it is enforced by camera, so you can be penalised without ever being stopped.
• You do not have to hold the indicator on for the whole overtake. Signal out, cancel once you are in the lane, signal back in.

Merging

France has no codified equivalent of the British merge in turn rule. Two principles do the work instead:

• Traffic already on the carriageway has priority. On a slip road, matching speed and finding a gap is your job, not theirs.
• Signal the move, every time, per the rule above.

Indicate every time, merging or changing lanes

• There is no merging exemption in France, and this is not a courtesy rule. Article R412-10 covers any change of direction or lane, and joining from a slip road is a lane change.
• The penalty is a fine plus three licence points, enforced by camera, so you can be caught without ever being stopped.
• Indicate early, while you are still on the acceleration lane, not as you cross the line. Cancel it once you are across.
• What actually differs between merging and changing lanes is who gives way, not whether you signal. Some countries, Australia in particular, have separate give-way rules depending on whether the painted line between the lanes continues or stops. The indicator requirement does not change either way.

Speed limits

The national limits, unless a sign says otherwise:

Three things to know beyond the table:

• Some départements have put stretches of single carriageway back to 90 km/h. The sign wins, always. If there is no sign, 80 is the safe number.
• Drivers, and visitors, who have held a licence for less than three years have lower limits.
• Speed camera apps must operate in danger zone mode in France, so an alert means a stretch of road rather than a point. Slow down and stay slow.

Alcohol

The French limit is lower than the limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and lower again for drivers in their first three years. Treat the answer as none.

What must be in the car

• A high visibility vest, reachable from your seat, not in the boot. One vest is the legal minimum. Carry one per person, because our own breakdown advice is that everybody gets out and therefore needs to wear a vest.
• A warning triangle.
• Spare prescription glasses if you drive in glasses.
• Licence, passport, rental agreement, insurance.
• Bringing your own right-hand-drive car: headlight beam adjustment, so your dipped beam does not point into oncoming eyes.

French road signs use the same shapes and colours as the rest of Europe. It is the words that catch people out.

Misfuelling is the single most expensive mistake a visitor makes in France, and it is entirely avoidable.

Gazole is diesel. Essence is petrol. If you are not certain, ask before you lift the nozzle.

Where to fill up

• Supermarket stations, Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarche, are noticeably cheaper than motorway stations. On a two week trip the difference is real money.
• They are also often unattended at night, and automated pumps are where foreign cards get declined. Fill up in the day where you can.
• Some supermarket forecourts have height barriers. Check before committing to the entrance in anything tall.

Checking prices

The French government publishes live pump prices for every station.

• Prix des Carburants

Bookmark it before you travel. It is a website with a mobile version, not an app, so searching the app stores for it will find you nothing useful or worse, a copycat. Prices are self-declared by retailers so treat them as a guide. For finding a station while actually driving, Google Maps is the practical tool because it is already open.

Most French motorways are tolled. Traditionally you take a ticket on entry and pay at a barrier on exit. That is still the commonest arrangement, but it is no longer the only one, and the newer arrangement is the one that costs people money.

Which roads

At the time of writing this includes the A79 in the Allier, the A13 and A14 between Paris and Normandy, and a section of the A4 in Moselle. More are converting: the A69 near Toulouse, the Grenoble motorways A43, A48 and A49, and the A40 and A412 in Haute-Savoie.

Two of those matter a great deal to our readers. The A13 and A14 are the route from the Normandy ferry ports towards Paris. The A40 is the route towards Chamonix and the Mont Blanc tunnel.

What to do

• Watch for the gantries and the signage. Entry to a free-flow zone is signed, and there are now hundreds of these signs on the converted sections. If you pass under a gantry and there was no barrier, Assume You Owe Money.
• Note the concessionaire name from the signs at the gantry. Sanef runs the A13, A14 and A4 sections. Aliae runs the A79. Each has its own payment site.
• Pay within 72 hours on that concessionaire's website. It is free and there is no surcharge inside the window.
• Set a phone reminder the same day. Do not leave it until you get home.
• You can also pay at a payment terminal on some service areas, or in person at a tabac or newsagent in the Nirio network, by giving your plate and the date and time you passed.
• Best option if you know your route crosses one: register your plate and a card with the concessionaire in advance, which pays automatically every time and removes the risk entirely.

• Sanef, for the A13, A14 and A4 sections
• Pay the A79 toll online (Aliae)
• How the A79 free-flow system works (Aliae)

At the barrier

• Watch the overhead symbols before you commit to a lane. A lane marked with an orange t is for electronic tag holders only, and you cannot pay in it.
• Lanes marked with a card symbol take bank cards. Green arrow lanes take cards and cash.
• If you end up in the wrong lane, press the assistance button rather than reversing. Reversing at a toll plaza is dangerous and often filmed.

Working out what it will cost

• ViaMichelin route planner

Gives tolls, fuel and journey time for the whole route, works in English, and covers the rest of Europe too. There is a proper app, so this one is worth downloading.

Avoiding tolls is a real decision, not a free saving. The toll-free route is cheaper and often more beautiful, but it adds hours and it puts a first-time right-side driver onto exactly the N and D roads where priorité à droite applies.

Zone bleue and the parking disc

Blue road markings plus a sign carrying a disc symbol mean free parking, but time limited. To use it you must display a disque de stationnement set to your arrival time.

• Set it to your ARRIVAL time and display it behind the windscreen.
• The maximum stay is set by each town, so read the sign. It varies from thirty minutes upward.
• Buy one in any supermarket, tabac or fuel station for a euro or two. Mairies and tourist offices often hand them out free.
• The same European disc works in other EU countries that operate blue zones. It does NOT work in the UK, where each council issues its own.

Paid parking

• An horodateur is the ticket machine. Buy a ticket, display it on the dashboard.
• EasyPark and PayByPhone both work in France and cover different towns, so check which one your destination uses.
• These apps bill against the number plate. If you register a hire car on an app, remove the plate from the app at drop-off, or you can be charged for sessions started by the next renter.

A Crit'Air sticker is a small round windscreen disc that rates your car's emissions. You need one to enter a low emission zone, called a ZFE, and foreign plates are not exempt.

• Hire car: it almost always already has one. Your job is to glance at the bottom of the windscreen at pickup, and ask the desk if it is missing.
• Your own car: you must order one, and it has to arrive before you travel. It cannot be sorted at the border.
• Order here, and nowhere else https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/

Order one to two weeks ahead. It is posted to the address on your vehicle registration document, so make sure that is current. Copycat sites charge many times the official price for the same thing.

Where the sticker goes

Inside the windscreen, in the bottom right corner, facing outward so it can be read from the street. That position keeps it clear of the driver's sightline and it is where enforcement expects to find it.

• It must be stuck to the glass. Laying it on the dashboard is not compliant, even if it is perfectly visible.
• Inside, not outside. It is not weatherproof.
• You get one attempt. The adhesive is deliberately destructible so a sticker cannot be moved between cars. Peeling it tears the paper or wipes the print, and then it is invalid and you buy another.
• Replacing a cracked windscreen destroys it, and there is no free replacement. Order a new one from the official site.
• Motorbikes, scooters and anything without a windscreen: front fork, front mudguard, or the right-hand front fairing. Somewhere rigid and clearly visible from the front.

Hire car: you should not be sticking anything anywhere. Just check at pickup that one is already there, in the bottom right of the windscreen, and tell the desk if it is not.

Where you need it

• Every French agglomeration over 150,000 people is required to have one, and the number keeps growing. Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Montpellier, Rouen and Nice among them.
• Each city sets its own threshold, so what is allowed in one may not be allowed in the next.
• Transit counts. Some of the motorways that carry you around or through Paris and Lyon sit inside permanent zones, so you can need a sticker without ever intending to stop.
• Any city can switch on a temporary restriction during a pollution spike, sometimes at a day's notice.

Because the map and the thresholds change, check the official zone map for your route close to your travel date rather than relying on a list.

• The official ZFE map
• The national ZFE portal, rules and exemptions per zone
• Bison Futé's ZFE-m map, alongside the traffic map you are already using
• Route simulator, tells you whether your route and your Crit'Air class hit a zone

• An electric car is Crit'Air 0, the cleanest class, welcome in every low emission zone. You still need the physical green sticker, because the rating does not count if it cannot be seen.
• Plugs are Type 2 for AC and CCS for rapid DC, the same as the UK and most of Europe. No adapter needed.
• Every motorway service area with fuel is required to have rapid chargers, so long trips are well covered.
• Pay with a roaming app or card that works across networks. Contactless bank cards work at many rapid chargers but not all, so do not rely on it alone.
• A Chargemap pass is a physical RFID card that has to be posted to you. Order it weeks ahead, in the same batch of jobs as the Crit'Air sticker. Ask at pickup first, since a hire EV may already come with one.
• The 130 km/h motorway limit uses more battery than UK or Australian speeds. Plan more generously than you would at home.
• Chargemap https://chargemap.com/
• PlugShare https://www.plugshare.com/

Long road tunnels are their own driving environment. The rules differ from normal roads and they are camera enforced.

Everywhere

• Dipped headlights on before the portal. Not sidelights.
• Sunglasses off before you enter, not after.
• No overtaking, no stopping, no reversing, no U-turns.
• Keep your distance. The temptation in a tunnel is to close up. Resist it.
• Keep the radio on, any station. Long tunnels rebroadcast many stations and break in over whatever you are playing to give instructions. There is no single frequency to find.
• French motorway traffic radio is 107.7 FM, and it is the same number nationwide.
• If you break down, reach a lay-by if you can, hazards on, and use an emergency phone rather than your mobile. The emergency phone tells the control room exactly where you are.

The Alpine tunnels into Italy

Mont Blanc and Fréjus are both long, both single tube with two-way traffic, and both heavily regulated. Speed, spacing, height limits and vehicle classes are set by each operator and they differ between the two tunnels.

Mont Blanc Tunnel

• Home, live traffic and apron temperatures
• Traffic regulations and rules of behaviour
• Forecasts and closures
• Vehicle classification and tolls
• Webcams
• FAQ

There is a free operator app, TMB Mobility, on iOS and Android. The site also shows live temperatures at both the French and Italian entrances, which is the best winter-readiness signal you will get.

Fréjus Tunnel

• Home and live status
• Tunnel safety instructions
• Scheduled closures and single-lane working
• Vehicle classification
• Prices
• Webcams and practical information

If you are in a campervan, motorhome or towing

This is where people get turned round at the barrier.

• Camping gas bottles must be declared at the toll booth and turned off before you enter. Most people do not think of a gas bottle as hazardous cargo. The tunnel does.
• Height limits are checked at the toll gates. Know your height.
• No hazardous materials, under any circumstances.
• An LPG-fuelled vehicle is a different question from a camping gas bottle, and the rules are not the same. Check the operator's FAQ before you set off, not when you arrive.
• Toll class rises with height and axles, and tunnel tolls are not cheap to begin with.

Two things to check before you book accommodation, not before you drive

• Closures. Both tunnels make full maintenance closures lasting weeks, and periods of alternating one-way working, and both publish them well in advance. If your accommodation is on the far side and you have no second route, that is a holiday-shaped problem. If both are shut at once, the alternatives are the passes, the Fréjus rail shuttle, or a long detour via the coast.
• The descent afterwards. The tunnel exists so you do not have to take the passes and hairpins, which is why it is the sensible crossing for a large or loaded vehicle. But a long descent still follows. If you are used to flat country, engine braking and gear selection on a sustained descent is a real skill, and riding the brakes for twenty minutes is how brakes fade.

France has the best motorhome infrastructure in Europe. Thousands of designated stopping places, in almost every town and village, many free and most of the rest very cheap.

Four things share the word aire

All four appear on blue signs and it is easy to read them all as somewhere to stop.

Do not sleep at motorway rest areas

Fine for a coffee and a leg stretch. Not for the night. They have a long-standing reputation for theft and motorhomes are specifically targeted. Come off the motorway and use a camping-car aire in a town instead.

This matters more than it sounds, because the instinct when you are tired is to pull in at the next place you see. That instinct is wrong here.

How aires work

• No booking. First come, first served. Turning up in the morning gives you the best chance in high season.
• Many are free. Paid ones are cheap, with small separate charges for a water fill or an electric hook-up.
• Some are free overnight but start charging early in the morning. Read the sign at the entrance, not just the app.
• Most handle vehicles up to around eight metres. If you are nine metres or longer, check the listing before you commit to the approach road, because turning round is often not an option.
• Facilities vary enormously. Some are a marked corner of a car park. Some have showers, electricity and a view.

Wild camping

Technically not permitted. Bivouac conventions exist for a single overnight stop with permission, but it is not a reliable plan for a visitor and it is not worth the argument. With this many aires available there is very little reason to try.

Apps and schemes

• Park4Night
• Campercontact
• France Passion

The listings matter less than the user reviews and photos, which tell you whether an aire is pleasant, full, or a gravel patch beside a recycling centre. France Passion is a paid annual scheme for overnight stays at farms and vineyards, and for a lot of people it becomes the best part of the trip. Set all of these up before you leave home.

Driving something big

A hired motorhome is often the biggest vehicle a person has ever driven, on the opposite side of the road, in a country they do not know.

• Village centres were not built for a seven metre vehicle. A satnav routing you through one is not a recommendation.
• A long rear overhang swings wide. Roundabouts, kerbs and fuel station canopies are where you find out.
• Assume you cannot reverse. Plan to arrive somewhere you can drive out of forwards.
• Know your height and width, and stick them on the dashboard.

Timing is often a bigger risk than place. The same road is fine on a Tuesday and grim on the first Saturday in August.

Bison Futé

The French government traffic service. Colour coded: green normal, orange busy, red heavy, black avoid entirely.

• Live traffic map
• English version (partial translation)
• Annual calendar, downloadable
• Detailed weekend forecasts

The annual calendar answers should we travel that Saturday, months ahead. The detailed forecasts come out a few days before and answer what time should we leave. A colour-blind version of the calendar is published on the same page.

The black days are the chasse-croisé changeover weekends in late July and early August, when one wave of holidaymakers goes home and the next sets off. Confident French drivers avoid them. A first-time right-side driver certainly should.

The stacking problem

First time on the right is fine. At night is fine. In rain is fine. On an unlit rural road with no shoulder is fine. Stack three or four of them and it stops being fine.

A readiness ladder, not a danger list

Millions of people drive in Paris every day without incident, so this is not about dangerous places. It is about the order in which to build up.

Places worth thinking twice about

• Paris. The Périphérique has traffic entering from the right with priority, the exact inversion of a British or Australian instinct. Place de l'Étoile is unmarked, multi-lane and priority to the right, and is well known for insurance exclusions. Add Crit'Air and the ZFE and there is almost no scenario where a tourist benefits from driving in central Paris.
• Alpine passes. Driving on the right puts you on the outside edge of the descending hairpins, next to the drop, often with no barrier. Cols de l'Iseran, Galibier and Turini are beautiful and are not a first-week activity.
• Corsica. Narrow, cliff-edged, no shoulder, and oncoming traffic that does not slow down.
• Marseille and Nice. Assertive local conventions, and the Côte d'Azur is at capacity in August.
• Ring roads generally. Lyon's tunnel system, Bordeaux's rocade, Toulouse. Multi-lane, fast, and exit signage that assumes you already know the region.
• Rural Brittany and Normandy lanes. High hedges, blind bends, farm vehicles, and priorité à droite still applying at unmarked junctions.

What to do instead

• Take the TGV and rent at the destination.
• Pick the car up at a suburban branch rather than the airport.
• Park and ride, or drop the car before the city rather than driving into it.
• Sleep before you drive.

Emergency numbers

Give your location first: road number, direction of travel, nearest junction or marker post.

Breaking down

• On an autoroute you may NOT call your own tow truck. Only the official operator may recover you.
• Use an orange emergency phone rather than your mobile. It tells the control room exactly where you are.
• Everyone out of the vehicle and behind the barrier. Not in the car, not on the hard shoulder.
• Vests on before you open the door. Warning triangle behind the vehicle where it is safe to place it.

After a crash

• Stop. Hazards on. Vest on before leaving the vehicle.
• Anyone injured, the road blocked, or a dispute: call 112.
• At pickup, check the constat amiable, the European Accident Statement, is in the glovebox. Ask the desk if it is not. Almost no visitor knows this form exists until they need it.
• Complete it with the other driver. The numbered boxes are identical across Europe, so they match even when the words do not. Both sign, each keeps a copy, and do not drive away without one.
• Photograph both vehicles, the damage, the wider scene, the other driver's documents and the road layout.
• Tell your rental company the same day.

Fines

French police can require immediate payment or a deposit from a non-resident driver, on the spot. This surprises visitors used to a notice arriving in the post.

Set these up on wifi, at home, while you still have your usual phone number for verification codes. Several send SMS codes, which is awkward once you have swapped to a travel eSIM. And don't forget your Fargeaux glovebox guide!!

Screenshot your rental agreement and the assistance number. The moment you need them is the moment you have no signal.

So many of the differences are mirror images that they are easier to learn as pairs than as separate facts. If you are driving both countries on one trip, this is the table to read twice.

A one-page sheet for the glovebox. Emergency numbers, what to do after a crash or a breakdown, fuel names, and a space to write in your own hire car details. Designed to work with no phone signal at all.

And when you want to actually learn the signs instead of panic at speed, that is what the app is for. Spaced repetition, sign recognition and real scenarios, so the rules are in your head before you turn the key. Holiday stressless with Fargeaux!

Sources: French government sources including the official Crit'Air portal and the Securite Routiere, Bison Futé, and the tunnel operators GEIE-TMB and SFTRF. French government content is reused under the Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab). Road sign artwork is from Cerema, reused under the Licence Ouverte 2.0. This guide is original writing by Fargeaux and is general guidance, not legal advice. Rules change: always check the official source before you travel.