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francethe French umbrella & Aurillac the forest
as seen by francois mauriac, and today the Citroën 2CV: Marianne - a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps the calendar of the French Revolution mardi gras! carnival in Basque country what a hair cut! m & french pop/rock country life in France: the poultry fair |
You land driving in France from the ferry or train. You are very likely to be on motorways for a good while as your first experience. Prepare! Think ahead. The fuel on the motorways is 20% more expensive than in the supermarkets. The food is probably better in the supermarkets than anything you bring with you. Depending when you land, if you do not like giving money away to shysters, then have enough fuel to allow you to reach where you intend to first shop. The Channel ports all have supermarkets, but the northern retail centres [centres commerciaux] are usually somewhat seedy: OK for that quick dash across for the duty free, alright for a stop if you can afford the time and do not mind the hassle. Or you can plan ahead, carrying enough fuel to arrive at your first option down the motorways.
So to finding that vital, elusive supermarket. You need to know the names of several of the main chains: Carrefour, LeClerc, Geant or Casino, Auchan, Super U, Intermarché, Champion; then look for their road signs. Almost every substantial town has a ring road, or rocade, often despoiled by vast human beehives for the poorer classes [habitations à loyer modéré or HLMs], but enlivened with hoardings and large retail complexes where the various huge stores live often alongside cafés, do-it-yourself, garden centres, many smaller shops and, of course, the cut-price service station. The French idea of signposting is rather slapdash and idiosyncratic, 5mn gauche [5 minutes left] or droit [right]. Well, it sort of depends on your speed, doesn’t it, and do they mean on this road or turn right? Expect some navigational messing around ’til you locate the gold mine, not to mention ever-impatient drivers as you dither. Another favourite game is that when you want to turn left (across the oncoming traffic), you first have to turn right and then double back. Good hunting. Eventually you find the supermarket, not much different from the English chains, except often a great deal larger [called hypermarchés or grand surfaces] and with much wider range of goodies. They are somewhat cheaper than Britain, especially when the pound is relatively strong (usually). During 2006, the frequent contradictory, badly placed road signs have even come to the notice of the French tv news and the government. Now it is official, you can expect to see consecutively speed signs of 70kph, 90kph, 50kph within a few hundred metres/yards of each other. In contrast, French speed cameras are well forewarned. Roughly half a kilometre before every speed camera in France, there is a large prominent sign, either to the side (right) or in the centre of the road, which occurs sometimes on dual carraigeways or motorways. The location of each camera is identified by the government, and there are online maps and lists [page in French] available of their locations; this link is to the French government pages of camera maps and lists. If you generate an itinerary using Mappy, it will locate (approximately) where there are any speed cameras on your route.
However, although the warning sign is prominent, the camera that follows is often placed discretely - under a bridge, behind a road barrier, near a roadside planting. Also be aware that French fixed cameras are not set on high supports as in the UK, but are attached to a short support near the ground. There is no reason in France to receive a speeding ticket from a fixed camera, the signs like that photographed above are very prominent and usually several hundred yards before the camera - see a sign and make damn sure your speed is comfortably below the local speed limit. You can even take pleasure in watching the cars rushing past who are then flashed by the camera.
As well as the 1,000 fixed cameras on French roads, installed since October 2003, there are also many mobile cameras used by gendarmes. These may be set up at the roadside, or looking out from the back of a police estate car. These cameras will also be signed by a smaller, mobile warning sign.[French goverment map showing numbers of mobile cameras in each department, as at 16/01/07.] French speed cameras send two photos and accompanying data to a central processing point that, after assessment that the driver was speeding, automatically sends out the paperwork demanding the fine. Fines are on sliding scales, depending how much above the local speed limit the car was going. Be aware also, that the fines are accompanied by a deduction of one or more points from the driving licence, again on a sliding scale. If you receive such a demand, it has to be paid first (with the amount doubling if there is delay) and any dispute can be made later. However, as a foreign visitor, you may well escape paying a fine, unless you are caught by a roadside gendarme who demands an immediate fine, or unless your car is registered in another European Union country that has a bilateral agreement.
Euroland is gradually moving to reciprocal recognition and shared data record storage of car registration. The first countries that are moving towards such arrangements are Germany, Holland, Spain. This situation will be complete when the propsed European driving licence is in place. Driving aroundFinding your way around towns often is not simple.[5] You will often find yourself driving around in circles, trying to garner directions from them forriners who usually do not speak English too well. Of course, all the roads are the wrong way around, the road signs ain’t great,[6] and the French cannot drive. No, they seriously cannot. France has twice the area of the whole UK to spread out about the same population, but until recently they still managed to kill twice as many people. The moment my wheels touch France, I drop my speed a full 10-15 mph. No, I’m not kidding! The French are not just dangerous drivers, they are widely and generally incompetent drivers. priority
from the right
You should learn to recognise this sign. On roads with this sign, drivers have priority to when going across intersections or turning onto another road. There is also a version with a line through it, meaning “this road does not have priority”, that is cars coming from the right onto this road have the priority.
You no longer are on a road with priority; Roundabouts are generally exempt from this rule (cars should not just drive out onto the roundabout on the basis that they are to the right of cars already going round, although often they do) - note the cedez le passage/give way signs. These mad priority signs, a positive clear sign telling you that idiots cannot jump out from your right and a negative sign (that has a cancelling line across) telling you that other drivers may jump out ahead of you, appear to have been developed by French bureaucrats attempting to correct the mess they had made previously with the generalised priority from the right rule. Even today, I have had a driver stop on a main road to let me out of a side road, with the usual screeching of brakes as others try to stop behind him; while still a considerable percentage regularly jump out onto roundabouts against oncoming traffic. Doubtless, the powers cannot admit to making this incredible foul-up, so I return you to my original advice: drop your speed in France and recognise that the French just cannot drive - assuming you want to live. other driving ‘delights’ Maybe this will start to change now, as even the French central government has had enough and is heavily cracking down on the situation. They are bringing in speed cameras[7], and are already becoming rather keen as it is realised how much money can be made from them. A whole raft of spot fines is now being enthusiastically applied for the most trivial and ‘creative’ infractions, for instance: 80€ for forgetting to turn off your fog lights. If you are stopped, you’d better hope that the flic has his quota for the day, or is after bigger game. While the motorways are generally of good standard, my impression is they have narrower lanes, but I’ve never checked. Once you are off the motorways, road quality varies considerably. France is much more decentralised than the UK, so every local commune [local authority] makes its own decisions. This means you can be tootling along a road with a good, well-kept surface and suddenly, without warning, the quality can drop dramatically as you move from one commune to another. Other amusements you may run across:
No, I’m not joking. Drop your speed at least 10 mph, and live longer. AutoroutesIn France, you pay through the nose for most motorways [autoroutes] (there are a few free motorways, around large cities and in Northern France) but there is one great joy and luxury that comes with this cost – an immense variety of aires. Read more about the autoroute network and the more interesting aires in motorway aires, introduction, also accessible from the drop-down menu at the top of this page.
End notes
Work notes Where to stay Quick |
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| email abelard@abelard.org © abelard, 2004, 05 april the address for this document is http://www.abelard.org/france/first-arrival.asp |
