Renewing a French drivers licence

Hi I had a French drivers licence that I lost. Does any one know how to get a replacement drivers licence?

You do it online at the ANTS site now

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Thank you Do you think that work if you had a french licence, that is still valid, but was exchanged fir a British licence?

If you exchange your licence for one from another country I thought your original licence was automatically invalid. You can’t have two driving licences (or certainly aren’t supposed to have!). This is a pretty universal condition to combat driving crime.

But no harm in trying perhaps?

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I had to send my old licence off to ANTS to get my French one. I presumed they had it cancelled, but maybe not.

A bit of good publicity to push things along. Though it seems like British licence holders in Spain and Italy have even more immediate problems than those here :frowning_face:

I have friends who have just sat their French Driving Test Theory part - it appears to be a bit of a nightmare being in French (understandable obviously that it is in French but makes padding such tests tricky for those who it isn’t their first language).

How many questions and is it multiple choice? Can you practice online. I wouldn’t worry too much about the theory but heaven knows how many bad habits I’ve picked up on the road over the years.

You could look at this…

https://www.codeclic.com/gratuit.php

Not sure I understand everything here, the article seems to make out that you could keep your UK driving licence in France (“British residents of France would need to exchange their UK licences for French ones, and would have until 31 December 2021 to apply to do so.”), didn’t you have to swap it for a French one down at your Préfecture after a year or so? (didn’t insurance companies in France force you to frenchify your licence?).

Or does this article just refer to new UK residents, roughly those who arrived in 2020 and haven’t yet converted it?

I went to the prefecture in 2019 they told me I had yo down load forms and send it all off to Nantes. I did that in October 2019. In October 2020 it was all sent back to me telling me that my licence didn’t expire till December 2021 so to send it back for an exchange at a later date!!!

It is multiple choice but there are many answers that are correct in part but only 1 is the absolutely correct answer. From the examples I have been given it is way more difficult that I would have thought.

The actually driving part wouldn’t concern me but the theory sounds horrendous.

I passed first time back in 1968 but I suspect that it won’t be that easy any more. You can have a translater firr the test.

I think Ă  translator is only available in Paris & Pau and is very expensive.

Pre-Brexit there was no need to exchange a valid UK licence to drive while resident in France, thus many didn’t.

With Brexit France has decided that we have to exchange our licences by the beginning of 2022.

While the UK has said it will recognise EU27 licences indefinitely, France has decided that there has to be some formal France/UK protocol. Plus its equivalent of the DVLA is totally overwhelmed with applications and is now rejecting further applications.

Today’s Guardian article, while not totally accurate, gives an indication of the problems.

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I agree France is to blame for how badly Brexit reality is - how dare they withdraw the advantages of being within the EU just because UK left.

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Thanks for that. I was asking as here (UK) I had to send my French licence to the DVLA within a year, after that insurance companies refuse to insure you. Quite effective d’ailleurs the DVLA, I’ve been impressed in my dealings with them over the years. If only the Home Office was as well run…

But it is based on the code de la route…which is pretty standard stuff if one has been driving for some time. Yes there is more about car maintenance that I would have to learn, a d knowing what penalties you get for each bad thing you do, but looking at practice questions it is straightforward. Read the 4 volumes of the code, learn the bits you don’t know, unlearn the things you do wrong and that’s it isn’t it?

Mind you I would still prefer not to do it! I’m learning the livret de citoyens and that’s enough for the minute.

The friends of our who have really struggled have been driving for 40 years - I think the issue is that there is more than 1 correct answer to each question but one particular answer is even more correct!

If you read the Guardian article fully Grahame you’ll see it is not only France that is (appropriately) applying the third country rules. Looks like the Italians are taking an even stricter approach, just do our test.

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