A brief history of the French road network
Legislative changes and too many roads!

Whilst the new millennium saw a milestone of 10,000 kilometres of motorway reached, the new millennium would see legislative reform, both at a national and European level. These would have far reaching implications to France's road network.

European legislative changes required the privatisation of motorway concessions, which led to the State needing to sell their stakes to third party companies. Competition became very much the buzzword in Brussels, the aim that opening up markets would reduce costs whilst improving quality.

For France, it would mean they still owned the autoroutes, but could not directly manage them whilst they remained tolled. This process would occur gradually over the following five years; only free roads and small new-build projects were permitted to be funded by the State.

The same would also apply to any new large-scale projects: all new autoroutes would have to be conceded to third parties, who would build and manage them on the State's behalf. And to ensure competitive tendering, cross-subsididing using toll revenues from existing profitable roads was also outlawed - this was often done by way of extending the duration of an existing concession to help cover the costs.

However, these new laws would threaten those motorways that were designed to act as an economic stimulus, the so-called "territorial development" routes. As these roads would either see lower usage or run through difficult terrain, they would never be attractive to private companies due to the greater financial risk; the only permitted route to fruition would be by way of a public-private partnership, whereby public funding (either State, local authority or even EU funding) could be used - as long as it was a minority contribution towards the total cost.

Whilst this was all going on, the French State was itself implementing the latest phase of its own favourite reform - decentralisation, the transferring of State assets to the regions and local councils. The idea was to make it easier to identify who was responsible for a service or asset, by bringing everything together at a local level. For roads, their fate would be determined by the 2005 reform.

Free motorways and route nationales were split into two groups - routes of national or European importance were retained, with day-to-day management handed over to one of eleven quangos known as Directions Interdépartementales des Routes, regional versions of the UK's National Highways. All other routes were handed over to the local councils, subsequently reassigned as route departementales.

 

Routes nationales that were downgraded in 2005 were given the catchy name route nationale d'intérêt local - national road of local interest. This was a halfway house until the local councils issued a new number to the road, as some resisted taking on these roads. It led to the interesting situation of routes départementales keeping their old N-numbers, including their red cartridges. Whilst most départements subsequently issued new numbers, some wanted to maintain their roads' heritage. There were two ways this was done, either: retianing the old number but with yellow signs, such as the N20 in Esonne, or creating a hybrid number, such as the D-N7 in Var and Bouches-du-Rhone.

 

One of the first significant projects to be completed under the new concessions format was the opening of the famous Millau Viaduct in 2004. Located on the A75 in southern France, this remarkable structure - the tallest bridge in the world at a height of 336.4 metres - removed one of the last major bottlenecks faced by traffic heading towards the south coast and Spain.

Millau Viaduct, the famous cable-stayed superstructure located on the A75 - the only tolled section on an otherwise free motorway

2004 also saw major road projects selected for the next two decades. Rather than the traditional "master plans" being published, transport projects were instead chosen by the Comite Interministeriel de l'Amenagement et du Developpement du Territoire (CIADT) - this also included air, rail and sea infrastructure schemes. Such schemes would be funded by the recently formed Agence de financement des infrastructures de transport de France (AFITF), whose budget in 2005 was a mere 635 million Euros.

Another significant road project to open was the first part of the A86 Duplex route. Inaugurated in 2009, this is a six-lane motorway that runs in a double-deck tunnel within a single bore - this removed the need for a second bore, whilst keeping the opposing directions separate, albeit resulting in a 2 metres height restriction. A second section opened in 2011, the Duplex becoming France's longest urban tunnel at 6.3 miles long.

A86 Duplex tunnel section

Despite that, motorway construction was beginning to slow down, as much of the network was now complete. Although the 2000s saw another 1100 km of autoroute open, the 2010s would see construction plateau. Other than the comissioning of the A65, projects completed were generally infill schemes, completing routes like the A75 and A89, or were upgrades of nationales like the A63 project.

Changes to how authorities in larger conurbations function were introduced in 2010, which led to the formation of the métropole. This new tier of local government merged the functions of the département with that of the smaller municipalities - similar to that of a unitary authority in the UK.

A consequence of this was that the responsibility for all local roads was transferred to the new authorities. Following a trial carried out in Nice-Côte-d'Azur, a new M designation was introduced by the State for the métropoles to use. Redesignation hasn't been mandatory, so a number of métropoles opted to retain their inherited routes départementale numbering.

M924 road sign in Toulouse

In the case of Lyon, the designation has been applied to the former A6 and A7, where the new métropolitain council took control of the central sections as part of a project to redevelop the area around the Fourvière Tunnel and Perrache Station; the aim: remove through traffic from the city centre.

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 Picture credits
 A86 Duplex section is taken from an original by Lionel Allorge and used under this Creative Commons license
 M924 road sign is taken from an original by Kuremu Sakora and used under this Creative Commons license