French ‘green’ f ine for drivers
TOURISTS driving to France this Easter face a £117 fine if they fail to display a car sticker giving the vehicle’s emissions.
Drivers visiting Paris, Lyon and Grenoble must now show the certificate on their windscreen stating the vehicle’s age, engine size and level of dangerous gas it emits.
The new rules also mean cars more than 20 years old will be banned from driving through the three French cities altogether on certain days.
The ‘Crit’Air’ scheme issues stickers in six colours, running from green for hydrogen-powered vehicles to grey for the most polluting.
Twenty-two other towns and cities, including Lille and Dunkirk, may adopt the scheme.
For now, the stickers are only required for drivers travelling to Paris, Lyon and Grenoble. Tourists driving elsewhere in France do not need them.
The RAC has said it has been inundated with calls from frantic holidaymakers who have struggled to buy a sticker – blaming problems with the French government’s website.
Drivers say it is difficult to navigate and requires a raft of information about their vehicle.
British tourists can only apply online and must supply their vehicle’s identification number, insurance policy number, the vehicle title and registration details.
The stickers, which can only be bought from the website certificat-air.gouv.fr, cost €4.80 each – around £4.10 – including postage. Britons face a sixweek wait for it to arrive as there has been a flood of applications.
The French government says anyone whose sticker does not arrive before their holiday should print off a copy of the confirmation email of their purchase to show to police, if stopped. Police can issue on-the-spot fines of up to €135 (£117) if they see a car without one.
Vehicles deemed too polluting – including all petrol and diesel cars registered before January 1, 1997 – will be banned from the cities entirely between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday. Others will be barred on days of high air pollution.
Jean Phillips, 66, of Worcester Park, Surrey, gave up trying to get a sticker after 90 minutes. She said: ‘We are completely stuck. I am amazed anyone ever gets to the end of the form.’
Simon Williams, of the RAC, said: ‘The RAC travel team has been dealing with hundreds of calls from members asking for help with their applications. [They] can be quite a challenge, even for anyone who is reasonably IT literate.’