I think it's just that they don't particularly want to subsidise the road industry to that extent, and so tolls are a convenient way of both paying for the motorway network's existence and discouraging local traffic, keeping the motorway free flowing.
In the age of a climate crisis this could be a good way of deterring people from using road transport when high-speed rail alternatives exist. Paris to Marseille is only three hours or so by TGV while driving could take twice as long, so if I were in charge I'd certainly want to try and encourage more people to take the train.
The speed limits aren’t appreciably higher (120km/h vs our 112km/h on motorways) and drop by 20km/h in wet weather.
Speed limit is usually 130km/h on motorways, although some stretches are 110km/h and even 90km/h through urban areas.
This is a substantial misunderstanding.
There is a lot more to road user charging than this, unfortunately. For a start, how much comes from general taxation (and from national versus local taxes) and how much from users; how much commercial and private vehicles each pay, fixed amounts versus charges by distance.
I've only really used the railways in France a couple of times. Yes, the high speed lines were good, but local lines could be infrequent and they stopped running at lunchtime. Maybe it has changed.
Precisely, it's a bit like the M6 toll experience. Less cars, better road surfacing, less stress
Although the M6 toll is rather more expensive on a per-mile basis than in France (£10.50 standard car rate for 27 miles (39p/mile), compared to 12c/mile (so about 10p!) in the quoted French example)
To be fair a lot of the smaller cities in France have tram systems unlike the UK - AI tells me that there are 27 modern systems in the country. So Dijon does - similar in size to Exeter - and further extensions have been authorised. So does Brest - similar in size to Plymouth - whilst Rennes of comparable size even has a metro. The urban bus networks in these cities are pretty comprehensive too.
True, I think that's a partly a fact of it being one of the only escapes from our usual congested linear car park motorways, while the congestion level on the mostly tolled French motorway network is much lower across the board.
No - rural train services in France are fairly dire and started their decline in the 1930s (competition from motor vehicles). Many rural lines have infrequent and sparse services (with many SNCF run bus services) in contrast to the relatively excellent high speed network.
Agree very much-only in the bigger cities it is-and also much cheaper, even more so for dozens of types of special (needy) groups of people. But on the countryside-also much, much bigger as UK has, it is much worse till non-existent. Best compare that with the most remote areas of Scotland.
Apologies - memories are of quite a long time ago!
Guessing the reason that the Autoroute from Calais to Belgium is toll free is that the EU (or the Belgians?) paid for it. Otherwise it would be a classic transit traffic cash-cow (but might have to accept Sterling!!)
Completely avoiding tolls can add to stress and hours by needing to go through towns with congestion. But I would recommend planning and minimising it. Try this :
Not sure why you think it would have to accept sterling...!
It's down to who built them. There's lots of free autoroutes - at least half of Calais-Rennes via Caen is free too. The paid ones are privately built and maintained, although some concessions did get state and European funding so it's a bit of a grey area, and the toll rates are inconsistent as a result.
It was meant as a joke based on the fact that in one direction most vehicles would e coming from the UK!
A lot of which are not UK registered!
