French Highway network

The French highway network gathers close to 750 000 km of various ways.

Management of the highway network

The Highway network is managed, according to the type of way, by the State and the territorial collectivities, like by concessionary companies. It is distributed after publication of the decree of December 5th, 2005 specifying the consistency of the domestic network as follows:

( Source: Andre Guillerme, Ways, roads and highways , Books of mediology, 2,1996 and decree of December 5th, 2005 )

Pursuant to the law of the August 13rd 2004, the State thus transferred more than 17.000 km of trunk roads to the departments, the length of the national highway network (trunk roads and not conceded highways) passing 28.500 km to 11.800 km.

History of the highway network

The installation and the evolution of the highway network rest on two essential components:

the most important roads, built and managed by the central capacity, have initially a military vocation until the First empire.
the evolution of the network of the trunk roads reflects that of the French administrative model, from the absolute centralism towards a certain decentralization.

The Roman epoch: roads for the legions

The Romains set up approximately 12 000 km of ways partially paved in order to easily be able to move their armies of an area to another. These ways connect Rome to the borders. The remainder of the territory is traversed simple dirt tracks.

After the fall of the Empire, these roads become less useful are degraded.

Old Mode: the embryo of a domestic network

With the the Middle Ages, France does not have any more an highway network on a country scale, but regional road and way in more or less good state. Thereafter, the governments devote to it only temporary efforts at the time of Louis XI, Sully and Colbert.

It is at the 18th century that the establishment of a true highway network becomes a permanent concern. The service of the Bridges and Chaussées develops and maintains the most important roads with the assistance of the ministry for the War. It builds with the system of the Corvée close to 30 000 km of ways between 1728, date of its creation, and the Revolution. The roads are bordered of trees in order to protect the pedestrians and the horses. The local ways remain with the load of the residents.

In 1776, a stop of the Council defines four classes of roads, since the “main roads which cross the totality of the kingdom, or which lead capital in main cities, ports or warehouses of trade” to the small roads of local interest. The roads of the first class, or royal roads , built from now on must have 42 feet of width, that is to say approximately 13 meters.

First Empire

At the exit of the Revolution, the roads are in a deplorable state.

For Napoleon Bonaparte, the imperial roads, which replace the royal roads, allow to unify the country and to facilitate the passage of the troops, as at the time Roman. It particularly sticks to develop the roads towards the Italy, to which it allots a particular political importance. It builds or arranges the ways passing by the Simplon pass towards Milan, by the Col of the Mount-Cenis (future RN6), by the Col of Lautaret and Briançon in the Vallée of Romanche in Oisans (RN91) and along the Mediterranean coast (RN7). The imperial way 1 (RN1), as for it, would have received this number because it connected Paris to Calais and, for this reason, was to be used with the dream as Napoleon: the invasion of the England.

The imperial decree of the December 16th 1811 distinguishes three classes from roads imperial. The first class contains fourteen roads from which will derive principal the trunk roads from today. All these roads leave Paris, even if some have a layout common to their beginning. Conceived at the time of maximum extension of the Empire, some of these roads finish in cities now foreign. The ways connecting the big cities of province between them are relegated in one second category. The decree mentions also the secondary roads, which correspond to the roads of 3rd class of the Old Mode.

The Treasury finances completely the roads of 1st and 2nd class and take part in the maintenance of the secondary roads.

Restoration and Monarchy of July

After the Empire, the State continues to improve the become again roads “royal”, then “national” after 1830, parallel to the development of the channels. Found peace and the explosion of the industrial revolution require a roadway system adapted to the trade. The administration of the Bridges and Chaussées builds new roads, renovates the existing ways, rebuilds bridges. The imperial system of classification is re-examined in 1824 (it will almost not change until the downgradings of 1974). The network counts 14 then; 000 km of royal roads in good state. One adds to the star shaped network centered on Paris of the transverse connections between Lyon and Bordeaux, between Agde and Toulouse.

Diligences go more and more quickly on this renovated network. The voyage of Paris in Lyon takes less than one day and half by the mail coach in 1848. One is with Bordeaux in two days.

For the first time the State starts to be interested in the local ways. The law of July 28th, 1824 creates the local roads, with the load of the communes but under the control of the prefects.

The competition of the railroad

Napoleon III completes the road which crosses the Alps by the collar of Lautaret (N91) as that which crosses Somport in the Pyrenees. It continues the committed effort under the Restoration in favor of the local roads and the general advices continue the extension of the network of the departmental ways, which covers 48 000 km in 1871. It should be remembered that the general advices are then submitted to the supervision of the prefect, i.e. of the State.

However the principal effort, in second half of the century, after the vote of the law of June 11th, 1842, relates to the development of the Railway network, copied on that of the trunk roads: the stages of diligence become stations of the railroad.

The era of the car

The 20th century replaces the carrioles and the horses by cars which support much less the irregularities of the roadway. Between the two wars, the State undertakes to tar the trunk roads then departmental.

In the Years 1960, it launches out in a vast policy of creation of Autoroutes.

The contemporary time: questioning of the traditional models

As of 1972 the State downgraded close to 53 000 km of trunk roads secondary. More recently, the law of the August 13rd 2004, adopted within the framework of the policy of Decentralization of the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, provides that the State must transfer to the departments management from the major part of the network of the trunk roads. This transfer relates to approximately 18 000 km of roads, of which the constraints, rights and obligations are transferred to the department. The State will preserve the responsibility for the “principal network structuring”, i.e. roads and highways which serve the main cities and which are considered to be essential for the economic life. The ministry for the Equipment presented in July 2005 the list of the roads that the State intends to transfer to the departments.

As for the reign of the car, it is called into question by the partisans of the rail-bound Transport to France, less pollutant. Thus the catastrophe of the Tunnel of Mont Blanc of the March 24th 1999, followed by a fire to the Tunnel of Frejus the June 4th 2005, reinforced the partisans of a great rail link between France and Milan.

Roads by departments

The cards by departments below have vocation to present a vision of the road, all categories confused (highways, trunk roads, secondary roads, communal ways) through the aspects: cartography, lengths, history, events old and recent.

Internal bond

Trunk road of France

See too

the transfer of the trunk roads to the departments (file of the ministry for the Equipment)

Andre Guillerme, '' Chemins, roads and highways '', Books of mediology, 2,1996
Shortened history of the roads, by Jean Billiards
the management of the roads

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