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Wednesday, 25 June 2008 |
Alterations to a number of
regulations mean that you no
longer have to have French number
plates on your car when you live in
France. Under the old system, anyone
living and driving in France for more
than three months was expected to reregister
the car. ‘French News’ reader
John Foskett noticed an increasing
number of cars with British number
plates but French insurance and
contrôle technique (CT) stickers; he
wrote to ask if there had been a change
in the law.
The reply from the French Ministry
of Transport took some time coming but
the answer is that, yes, you can now
quite legally keep your British or other
EU member state’s registration at least
until you sell the car.
Applicable rules are summarised in
three stages:
• First, the law requiring the
registration of a new vehicle
weighing more than 500kg, does
not mention that a French
resident’s car registered in another
EU state needs to obtain French
registration. (Article R322.1 du
code de la route).
• Second, a separate part of the code
(R323-1) which deals with the CT
does not link the CT to French
number plates. It simply says that a
valid CT is obligatory, whether
provided in another EU state or in
France. In France CT tests are
compulsory for cars four years old
and then every two years,
compared with, say, the UK’s MOT
test on three-year-old cars and
every year after. So there is an
obvious advantage in having a
French CT, quite apart from the
benefit of not having to go back to
the UK to have the car looked at
every year. In France CT centres
are separate from garages, so there
is less risk that faults will be found
in order to generate repair work.
• Third, the law on vehicle insurance
was altered by EU legislation
dating from 2005. A directive
(2005/14/CE) placed the
responsibility on each state to
ensure that every vehicle on its
roads (or parked off-road) was
covered by insurance. This
effectively enlarged the existing
code des assurances, article
L.211-1, tel que modifié par la loi
n°99-505 du 18 juin 1999 which
allows the French state to register
“foreign” vehicles or to insist on
proof that they were insured in the
country of origin. This effectively
closes a loophole which some
foreign EU residents in France
used to escape paying insurance
premiums. Again, no mention is
made in the directive of the need to
change number plates.
In practice, it is not possible to get a
legal CT without insurance unless you
arrive at the CT station with your car on
the back of a lorry or a trailer. Moreover,
French motoring insurance policies
include a clause saying a vehicle must
have a valid CT (or be under four years
old), in order for the insurance to be
valid, so the two are linked.
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