French Driver's License

For those of you who have lived in another country, you know that many countries in the past issued a driver’s license with no expiration date. France was one of those countries. Until 2013, Germany also had no expiration on their driver’s license.

We lived in Tours, France for a year to learn the French language. During that year of studies, we had a new Peugeot 504 station wagon that we shipped to the Ivory Coast after our French studies were completed. While driving our Peugeot during language studies, we used an international driver’s license which you could obtain in your country of origin where you were a registered driver. You did not have to forfeit your US driver’s license to get an international driver’s license.  

When our studies were completed, we had to stay in France for a couple weeks longer than a year because our house was still occupied in Abidjan. That was good news for us because getting a French driver’s license required a year’s residency in France, so we could get a French license.

During the time we lived in France, we had to always carry an ID card and the international driver’s license. Both documents were laminated and very large. It was impossible to carry them in a wallet or a pants or shirt pocket. You either had to wear a sport coat or overcoat to carry these documents. The only other way to keep them on your person was to carry a “man purse.” Yes, I adapted to the French culture and bought a man purse.

When we arrived in West Africa, I still had to carry the large French driver’s license, and it was blazing hot ALL the time, so I decided that I was going to fold my laminated license and carry it in my wallet. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do because it was a mess, but at least I did not have to carry my purse.

Fifteen years later we moved to Germany. I was traveling to 21 countries in eastern Europe for 70% of the time, so I decided that I was not going to get a German license. I worked hard to get the French license, and I did not want to give it up. Getting the German license was quite an ordeal for Cheryl, but that’s a story that I am not going to touch!

Year later we moved to London, and Cheryl took the driver’s test and got her license, but I never did. Again, I was traveling a lot more than she was, so she was the primary driver on our car insurance. I was never a registered driver in the UK, so that meant that I drove on my old French driver’s license.

Over the past 44 years I have driven in dozens of countries all over the world, and each time an official has stopped me I have shown them my French driver’s license. Cheryl’s UK license expired many years ago, but my French driver’s license lives on!