Driving Offences Lawyer in Paris

Which driving offences are criminal offences in France?

French road traffic law draws a sharp line between contraventions, minor offences usually settled by a fixed fine, and délits, criminal offences tried by the tribunal correctionnel (criminal court) that carry imprisonment and a criminal record. Most visitors and residents only discover where that line runs after a roadside check has gone wrong. The cases the firm handles are on the délit side: drink driving, drug driving, refusing the checks, refus d'obtempérer (failure to stop), délit de fuite (hit and run), driving without a licence or despite a suspension, and accidents causing death or injury.

Alcohol is the most common file. Driving with 0.8 g of alcohol per litre of blood or more, or 0.40 mg per litre of exhaled air, is a délit punished since the law of 9 July 2025 by three years of imprisonment and a 9,000 euro fine (article L234-1 of the Road Traffic Code), with the loss of half of the maximum number of points, six on a full licence. Between 0.5 and 0.8 g per litre, the offence is a contravention. The court can add a suspension of the licence for up to five years, or cancel it (article L234-2), and for a repeat drink-driving offence the cancellation is automatic. Drug driving follows the same scale: three years and 9,000 euros (article L235-1), raised to five years and 15,000 euros when the driver was also over the alcohol limit. These are the penalties in force in 2026, checked against the official text on 9 October 2026.

Two reforms have reshaped this area in the space of a year. The law of 9 July 2025 raised the penalties for alcohol and drugs, turned an excess of 50 km/h or more into a criminal offence from the first occurrence, and created the offences of homicide routier (road homicide) and blessures routières (road injury). The law of 18 August 2026 then aligned the penalty for refusing the checks on that of a positive result: three years and 9,000 euros, for alcohol (article L234-8) as for drugs (article L235-3). Advice given before these dates, including on many English-language websites, is often out of date. The French version of this page, the avocat pénal routier Paris page, sets out the same rules in French.

What happens after a roadside check or an arrest in Paris?

A drink or drug driving case in Paris usually starts the same way: a check on the boulevard périphérique or at a junction late in the evening, a breath or saliva screening test, then a confirmation test at the police station. From that point two procedures run side by side, and it is important to understand both.

The first is administrative and concerns the licence. The officers can withhold it on the spot (article L224-1 of the Road Traffic Code). The prefect then has 72 hours, or 120 hours when alcohol or drug checks were carried out, to order a suspension pending the court's decision; it is mandatory when the alcohol level or the use of drugs has been established by an approved device or by an analysis, and remains optional in other cases, for instance after a large speeding excess (article L224-2). If no decision is taken in time, the licence is returned. For someone who drives for work, this administrative suspension is often the first real consequence of the case, well before any hearing.

The second procedure is criminal. Depending on the circumstances, the driver is heard in an audition libre, a voluntary interview, or placed in garde à vue (police custody). Their rights must be notified in a language they understand, through an interpreter where necessary (article 63-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), and a foreign national can ask for their consulate to be informed, a call the investigators must make within three hours except in insurmountable circumstances (article 63-2). How to reach the firm from abroad, and what happens in the first hour, is explained on the police custody lawyer page.

At the end of the custody or the interview, the prosecutor chooses the route. For a straightforward and acknowledged file, the usual answers are an ordonnance pénale, a written criminal order issued without a hearing, a composition pénale, or the CRPC, the French guilty plea, where the sentence is proposed by the prosecutor and approved by a judge. Contested files, accidents and repeat offences are sent to the tribunal correctionnel, either by a court summons or, for a failure to stop or a driver in custody, by comparution immédiate (immediate trial).

How is a drink or drug driving case defended?

A driving case looks simple on paper: a figure on a ticket and a scale of penalties. In practice it is a technical file, and the first line of defence is the procedure itself. The firm checks the conditions of the stop, the order in which the tests were carried out, the approval and the verification of the device, the margins applied to the reading, the time between the screening and the confirmation, and the record of the notification of rights. For a driver who does not speak French, the presence and the quality of the interpreter at each step are examined: a statement taken without a proper interpreter is an argument raised before the court.

The second line is the classification. Between 0.5 and 0.8 g per litre, the offence is not a délit; a speed reading close to the 50 km/h threshold must take into account the technical margin applied to the device; an accident is not automatically a road homicide if none of the circumstances listed by the law of 9 July 2025 is established. The difference between two classifications is often the difference between a fine and a criminal record.

The third line is the sentence, and for most clients the licence matters as much as the penalty. The court has a wide range of options, from a suspension limited in time to a cancellation, and the hearing is where the personal situation is put before the judge: the professional need to drive, the family constraints, the steps already taken. No lawyer can promise to keep a licence, and the firm does not; what it does is prepare that part of the hearing with the same care as the procedural arguments.

What are the penalties for failing to stop or leaving the scene of an accident?

The refus d'obtempérer, failing to comply with an order to stop given by an officer, is punished by two years of imprisonment and a 15,000 euro fine (article L233-1 of the Road Traffic Code), and by five years and 75,000 euros when the driver exposes others to a risk of death or serious injury (article L233-1-1). Because these cases often end with an arrest after a chase, they are frequently tried the next day or within days in comparution immédiate. The firm's French page on refus d'obtempérer sets out the defence in more detail.

The délit de fuite, the hit and run, is defined by the Penal Code rather than the Road Traffic Code: a driver who, knowing they have caused or been involved in an accident, does not stop in order to escape liability, faces three years of imprisonment and a 75,000 euro fine (article 434-10). It is often charged alongside another road offence. Driving without a licence carries one year and 15,000 euros (article L221-2 of the Road Traffic Code), and driving despite a suspension two years and 4,500 euros (article L224-16). These offences are usually revealed by a routine check, and the defence turns on the circumstances and on the sentence.

Road homicide: how does the firm act for drivers and for victims?

The law of 9 July 2025 created the offences of homicide routier and blessures routières. They apply when an accident causing death or injury is accompanied by at least one of the circumstances listed by law, such as alcohol, drugs, an excess of 30 km/h or more, driving without a licence or a phone held in the hand; for a death, a failure to stop is one of them (article 221-18 of the Penal Code). When no such circumstance is present, the accident remains prosecuted as involuntary homicide or involuntary injury. These are serious cases, often investigated over several months, sometimes by an investigating judge.

The firm acts on both sides. It defends drivers who are prosecuted, who are presumed innocent, by examining the reconstruction of the accident, the expert reports and the link between the circumstance relied on and the damage. It also assists victims and bereaved families, many of whom live abroad: they join the proceedings as partie civile (civil party), have access to the file through their lawyer and claim compensation for every head of loss. The French mechanisms for victims are described on the firm's page on victims and civil parties.

Which court hears driving cases in Paris, and can the decision be appealed?

Road délits committed in Paris are tried by the tribunal correctionnel of the tribunal judiciaire de Paris, at Porte de Clichy; those committed in the surrounding departments go to the courts of Bobigny, Créteil, Nanterre, Évry, Versailles, Meaux or Pontoise. The hearing is public and in French. A judgment can be appealed within ten days of its pronouncement when it was given in the presence of the defendant (article 498 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), a short deadline for someone who has already left France.

A conviction for a délit is entered on the criminal record, the casier judiciaire, which may matter for a residence permit, a professional licence or a future application for naturalisation. The firm also handles applications to remove a conviction from the bulletin n°2, explained in French on its page on removing a conviction from the B2 record. Maître Bruguière receives clients in English at the office in the 7th arrondissement and pleads in French before the court, with an interpreter provided for the client where the law requires it. Drug driving is also covered on the drug offences lawyer page.