DrivingFrench Drivers License

If you need to take the French driving test click here.

Your American license is exchangeable for a French one if it is from one of the following states: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. If you think I missed a state, then call your local Préfecture or sous Préfecture or French embassy/consulate and tell them where your license is from and they will tell you if it is exchangeable. If not, then you are going to need to get a French license the hard way. It is a nuisance and expensive to get a French license from scratch. If you do have a license from one of the states I listed, you have one year from the date you entered France: the date stamped on your passport or Carte de Séjour, to make the exchange. If you wait more than a year, all is lost, you will need to get a French license the hard way. To get a French license from scratch here is the basic process:

Find a driving school- Not an easy process in and of itself, because so many go out of business. When I received my French license I went with L'Ecole de Conduite Francaise(ECF), a chain. It was fortunate that I did. The other independently owned school that I looked at, went out of business. There are some schools in Paris that have classes in English. I would not suggest doing this as those schools that teach in English are very expensive. You only need a basic knowledge of French to pass the written test. Also when you take the test you will need to pay for a translator, because the test is in French, the translator just translates the slides for you.
When you sign-up with your driving school you pay a flat fee for the written test, in my case about $220 US. Then you pay by the lesson, $35 US per lesson, for the practical.

Written test- The written test is made up of forty multiple choice questions. You have thirty seconds to answer each and must get 35 or more right to pass. What I found the hardest about the written test, was that more than one answer could be correct on some of the multiple choice questions. This along with the fact that some questions are in two parts, makes the written test in reality longer than forty questions.
Your driving school will give you a textbook for the written test that explains, if that is possible, the French driving code. All of your in class preparation for the written test consists of taking a practice test and then going over the test question by question, with the instructor. The practice tests have the same type questions, only harder, as the real test with the same time constrains. It took me a little over a month to get ready for the written test. At the time I was not working and went to my school almost every day. The school had self teaching CD ROMs during the day and classes at night. Some schools have classes through out the day with no CD ROMs.
I was not able to take the written test when I wanted to as there was first a problem getting back my paperwork from the Préfecture. I was told it would take a month, but because I was outside the norm, a foreigner, it took longer. Then when I finally received the test date, the test was canceled because there was the smell of gas in the examination center. In France, it's not like in the states, where you can choose the test location. Your school is given exam dates that it then gives to the students. Sometimes if demand is great, schools only have dates every few weeks.
If you get frustrated at times with studying for the written test, just remember that the actual test is easer than the practice tests. A friend of mine, the day before she took the written test, missed fourteen on a practice test, yet she passed when it counted.
At the above said, it is possible to study on your own for the written test. I know no one that has gone that route but I was told at my local Préfecture that I could. There are plenty of CD-ROMs that teach the written test, I used a few, along with some web sites(See below) and they did help.

Driving test- If this is the part you think will be the easiest, think again. It took me nine one hour lessons before I was "ready" for my driving test. That was with already driving for fifteen years! French driving schools make most of their money from driving lessons. Mine were about $30 apiece, so in no time you will have spent a few hundred dollars.
The test lasts about twenty minutes: you may be asked to parallel park, go through a few intersections that are yield right, drive on the highway, just about anything that you might do driving. As with the written, the driving test is not as hard as your instructor will make it out to be. My instructors where very strict, you had to do everything just so. For example when you change lanes, you need to look in your mirror, look over you shoulder, then look in the mirror again. Also you need to be constantly looking in your mirrors, about every ten seconds, so you know what's behind you. Your instructor will nitpick like crazy, it will not be nice. One thing that I found really frustrating was the fact that I was told to forget a lot of what I learned in studying for the written test. Another thing that I find frustrating and my wife will attest to this, is that no one drives like they are taught in France.
You are going to spend a few months, it took me three, to get a French license. Then you will see on a daily basis drivers running red lights, driving way over the speed limit and other infractions.

Enjoy!

Here are some links that I used when I was getting my French license:
http://www.permisauto.com/
http://www.hyperpermis.com/auto/
http://fr.cars.yahoo.com/ip/cr/
http://www.securiteroutiere.equipement.gouv.fr/signaux/default.asp