Exchange your UK driving licence for a French one.....easier said than done after Brexit!

 NANTES was bad enough, now ANTS is PANTS!

Remember, Get Brexit Done, is an anagram of: BEG, EXTEND, RIOT!

2 years ago, some months before my 70th birthday I sent all my forms off to the office, then in NANTES to exchange my driving license for a French one. I waited and waited, my 70th birthday came and went. I was stopped twice by the gendarmes in our tiny village, who thought it amusing that I had waited 6 months for a reply! They said it could take a year or more, meanwhile they were satisfied with my tattered pink and green paper licence, that was by then out of date.

My husband was seriously ill throughout this time and unfortunately died in October 2019. I lost the plot a bit and had so much other paperwork to do then, that I forgot about my driving licence application.  It suddenly arrived, or rather the big brown, pre paid envelope that I had addressed arrived.  I was excited, then immediately disappointed. After more than 18 months in their possession, and now after Brexit, the Nantes office had merely returned all my papers, some now out of date. They informed me that I should use the www.ants.gouv.fr website and make an on line application

So nearly two years later I was back to square one with the now added difficulties of the UK having made NO provision in Brexit negotiations, for the exchange of UK driving licenses for expats living in France. On the other hand, reading on the DVLA site it is a very simple process for EU residents in the UK to exchange their licenses. What happened to ‘reciprocal’?

This week I received the very informative message from the lfn.org website, and I was pleased to see an article on exchanging licenses. 

My problems are compounded now, because in the nearly 2 years that NANTES had my set of paperwork of course I turned 70 and my UK licence expired. I have been visiting many websites, overnight in panic. I need to drive, on my own now and living in a remote area, I even need to drive to empty my rubbish.

On the www.interieur.gout.fr site I find now that the required paperwork has changed, there is an additional ‘pièce justificative’ to provide:

Attestation des droits de conduire de moins de 3 mois des autorités britanniques permettant de vérifier que vous ne faites pas l’object d’une mésure de suspension, de retract ou annulation du droit de conduire; l’attestation doit être accompangiée d’une traduction effectuée par un traducteur habilité.

Translation: An authorization, not more than 3 months old, from the DVLA verifying that you have not been suspended or banned from driving, this must be accompanied by an official translation.

There is a complete list on the interieur.gouv.fr website

The ants.gouv.fr site does not have this Attestation  de droits à conduire listed on the version I looked at, so that’s confusing.

I then contacted DVLA in the early hours and it took ages to scroll through an on line many paged interrogation.  Eventually I was led to a page where I could request to see the details of my driving license. Excitedly, I put in my name and email address, by instant return I was sent a Case Number to use when I find my license to fill in the rest of the information later. If I succeed in getting this information, even though my license has expired and the DVLA probably think I am dead as I left the UK in 1992, it will be a miracle. I have my fingers crossed. 

I have also started making enquiries about taking my driving test in France! As I realized this might be quicker, and easier than battling authority. I found an online test example of the written test, I got full points but admit I had to guess three unexpected questions. There is a full set of answers to check with. 

The test is here:  https://www.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/passer-son-permis-de-conduire/preparation-de-lexamen-du-code-de-la-route/se-preparer-lexamen-du 

Be sure to jot your answers down as they just give the right answers.  If I decide to take this course of action I will have to investigate taking the test as ‘Candidate Libre’ otherwise the driving school courses are designed to take 2 years while young people are at school, allowing them to take their full test at 17. I will also want to find out if a person who has driven for 45 years, 20 in France has to do 1000 hours of accompanied driving, and have a red ‘A’ sticker on my car? But as a Candidate Libre you will save up to 850€ according to a book I saw on Amazon. 

It is called:   Passes le Permis de Conduire en Candidate Libre, approx 9,50€

I just tried the DVLA site with my magic number and nothing was found, guess they deleted me since I passed 70! 

I will be making more enquiries in the near future and will post my findings here on my blog,  or, more likely, my progress through the French driving test.

Good luck to all.

Blog: Another Quiet Day in the Corbieres