Your American license can be exchanged to the French license if it comes issued by one of these states listed below: Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Kentucky (Please be aware that the list is subject to be changed at any time!). If you believe that I have didn’t include the state you want, contact the local Prefecture as well as sous Prefecture and/or French consulate/embassy. They’ll tell you whether your license can be exchanged . If you’re holding an license from one of the states mentioned You can wait one calendar year starting from the day you arrived in France that is the date that is stamped on your passport, or Carte de Sejour to exchange your license. If you are waiting longer than one year, everything is lost. You must obtain the French driving license “from scratch’. This is a challenging procedure. The processof starting from scratch , is costly and time-consuming. The process is:
Find a driving school It’s not an easy task in and of itself since a lot of them are out of the business. I attended L’Ecole of Conduite Francaise(ECF)a chain to get my driving license. It was a blessing that I was able to do it. The other school that was independently owned I looked into ended up closing. There are a few schools in Paris which offer courses in English. The classes taught in English cost a lot. When you enroll with your driving school , you pay a set amount for the written exam, in my instance around $220 US. You pay for the lesson, which is $35 US per hour and $35 for the practice.
Written exam – The test is comprised of forty multiple-choice questions. You are given 30 seconds to answer each one and must answer at least 35 questions correctly in order to be successful. What I found to be the most difficult part of the written test was the fact that more than one answer can be correct for some of the multiple-choice questions. This, along with the fact that certain questions have two parts means that the test written in actual more than forty questions.
The driving school you attend will provide you a manual for the test which provides, if feasible what is what is the French the driving rules. Your entire in-class preparation for the test is to take an exam and reviewing the test questions by question with the instructor. The test questions are similar types of questions however, they are more challenging in comparison to what you will be taking on the real test. The time limits are similar.
I spent just over one month getting ready for my exam. I didn’t have a job and was at school on a regular basis. There was a self-teaching facility at the school. CD-ROMs in the morning and classes in the evening. Certain schools offer classes throughout the day, but no CD ROMs.
I was unable to take the exam when I was hoping to. There was first a difficulty returning my documents at the Prefecture. It was said that it could take about a month but since I was out of the norm to , being a non-native, the process took more time. After I received the date of the test the test was postponed because of gas smell in the testing center. In France in contrast to the United States it is not possible to select the location of your test. The school you attend is provided with examination dates which it provides to students. In some cases, if the demand is very high schools have only dates once every couple of weeks.
If you find yourself frustrated when studying for the test take note that taking the test in actuality is much easier to pass than practice exams. One of my friends who was studying the day before she took her test, was unable to complete 14 of the questions on a test she had taken and yet passed on the day it was due.