-
‘Careful’ road signs appearing in French towns and villages: what do they mean?
Signs display up to five blue hearts and are source of pride for local communes
-
Plastic in bottled water: these brands identified in France as least affected
A new consumer study claims four popular brands offer the safest water to drink
-
Good news for electric car owners in France as thousands more charging stations to be installed
MPs recently rejected plans to bring forward ban on petrol vehicles
10 more Crit’Air zones
More than a dozen large urban areas will have adopted Crit’Air pollution stickers for cars by the end of next year.

The scheme is already in place in Paris, Grenoble, Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille, Annecy and Rennes.
It is to be extended to: Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Saint-Etienne, Reims, Toulon, Rouen, Clermont-Ferrand, Fort-de-France, Montpellier and Nice.
Their mairies or prefectures will work out zones à circulation restreinte (ZCR – restricted traffic zones) where the measure will be enforced.
To drive in the zone, you need to display a sticker on the windscreen. Only cars rated below a certain pollution level will be allowed and it applies to all cars, including foreign-plated ones.
The stickers are in six colours and relate to age and emissions, from green/one (least-polluting) to grey/five. Cars first registered before 1997 cannot obtain one.It is up to the mairie to decide which categories of vehicle are permitted, and there are signs at the start of the zones.
In Paris it relates to the whole city intra muros and it is set to be extended to many of the surrounding “greater Paris” communes later this year.
You can order the stickers at this official site, for €3.11 plus postage at €3.62: certificat-air.gouv.fr/demande/cgu.
There are many third-party sites selling them – often for a considerable mark-up.