France

Driving in France

France rewards a little planning and punishes assumptions, mostly because two of its rules changed recently and the old versions are still repeated everywhere. The rural default is 80 km/h, not 90. It was lowered nationally and then partially reversed on selected roads by individual départements, so 90 applies where it is signed and 80 everywhere else. Novice drivers have a 0.2‰ alcohol limit rather than the general 0.5‰, and that status lasts three years. Autoroutes are tolled at barriers, where the green-arrow lane is the only one accepting cash or foreign currency. The bigger planning item is the Crit'Air sticker. Paris, Lyon, Grenoble and a growing list of other cities run low-emission zones that key off it, and a foreign-registered car cannot obtain one on arrival — it is ordered online and posted out. Without it you are excluded from those city centres regardless of how clean your car actually is, so this is a before-you-leave job rather than an on-the-day one. Mountain routes carry their own rule: in the designated Alpine, Pyrenean, Massif Central, Vosges, Jura and Corsican zones, winter tyres or chains are required from 1 November to 31 March on roads showing the specific sign. Otherwise France is comfortable driving. Priorité à droite still applies at many unmarked junctions, town parking often uses a blue disc showing your arrival time, and the radar network is dense and includes average-speed stretches.