Has anyone had experience of applying for a driving licence in France for their 16 year old in the past few years?
Our daughter is ready to take the test for her highway code - she has revised for it independently, and not with a driving school.
In order to sit the test, or begin driving lessons, she needs an NEPH number.
This is applied for through ANTS. I put the application into ANTS on April 17th along with several different documents that they ask for.
Since then they have come back to me asking for the some of the same documents again, which I have provided. The file status is no stuck on ‘en instruction’.
I contacted the helpline this morning to be told that they need to look ‘deeper’ into the application, and will probably come back to ask for her ‘titre de sejour’.
She doesn’t have a ‘titre de sejour’, as this it is only possible to apply for one from age 18 (we have provided our titres, along with all of our passports, proof of residence, bills etc). Our daughters both have DCEMs, which are documents for travel allowing them to get back into France with them being subject to the 180 day rule, but these are not titre de sejours.
The girl on the helpline isn’t sure but she thinks that my daughter will need to wait until she has a titre de sejour at the age of 18 before she can start to learn to drive! Surely this isn’t correct?
My daughter was born in France and has lived here all of her life. We, her parents, are both British so she is also British and cannot apply for dual nationality until she is 18.
So, if anyone with British teens who have learnt to drive in the past few years in France can shed some light on this, I’d be very grateful. Thanks
When my two learned to drive, they had to present their Titres de Séjour as it was back then in the mid 2000’s to obtain a permis. Both did everything via the local driving school and we had to do nothing except pay! Both of mine had already got TDS before they were 18 as we had been resident since 94 and had to present it for their BAC exams at Lycée. This paperwork etc is what you pay the driving school for and that would be my recommendation plus they need to learn with a professional to stand a chance of passing. As an afterthought, maybe your local mairie can do an attestation that your daughter was born in France but is not able to obtain an ID card of any form yet.
Hello Shiba
Thanks for your reply. Interesting that your kids had their TDS before they were 18 - things have certainly changed since then.
Now teens have to attend their day of ‘national service’ to be entered for their BAC , and to obtain their driving licence. Our mairie had to make a few calls to various military offices to be told that our daughter can’t do her ‘national service’ day as she’s not French, so she just takes her passport with her for her BAC exams at lycee. There’s never been a problem on that side of things.
We will sign up with a driving school once she’s got her code, as we know that it is really the only option here (we’re ready to re-mortgage)!
She’s revised for her code online, and is ready for it, so no point in paying the driving school for that bit. In any case, the ANTS helpline told me that the situation would be no different if we went via a driving school, as the driving school still need provide the same paperwork to obtain the NEPH for her.
Regarding an attestation for place of birth, both of our children have french birth certificates as they were born here, so no problem proving that. The issue seems to be the TDS, or lack of it, that’s blocking the process. Very frustrating.
I did wonder if you knew about it too @JaneJones but I’d forgotten that Kim is most definitely an expert in this area - can’t imagine how come I forgot that, as she was most helpful when it came to my driving licence
This is what many of my members have been told to do, it’s something that your Mairie can do for you, so I’m surprised they didn’t.
If you hold a Brtish passport you are not required to provide a JDC but you may need to go to your local Mairie and ask them to provide you with a letter stating you are a British Citizen and a copy of the passport certified by your Mairie and upload these documents where you are being asked for the JDC.
Hello Kim
Thanks for the info. My daughter has her DCEM but the operator didn’t think that this would help (in fairness I don’t think she knew what it was). Why does a DCEM help? It’s only a travel document…
JDC …what’s this?
Assuming your kids are British and you hold a WARP (Article 50 TUE), the DCEM is the only official document your kids can hold other than a TdS when they reach 18 or if they have a job from 16.
I have had plenty of kids using the DCEM as their own form of identity.
Regarding paying for the driving lessons etc, keep an eye on the banks. The CA were doing a special deal several times over the years whereby you pay €1/day for a loan to learn to drive just as they were doing €1/day loans to buy a laptop for students, obviously its upto a set limit but worth keeping an eye out for. Our local school allowed us to pay in installments.
@SamBam sounds like Kim has answered. We haven’t yet gone down the driving license route as son decided to wait as as an apprentice he gets masses of help to pay for it. The CDS is another thing, now a year trying to sort an appointment for his CDS at the prefecture
We don’t hold a WARP - is that for if you leave France for a certain time it allows you to keep your residency status?
We’ve been here for 21 years and we hold TdS’s. Our kids were born here, they have British passports because we’re British, and they have DCEMs.
I’m with you on the fact that operators don’t know about DCEMs. We got our TdS as quickly as we could after Brexit, and nobody mentioned the existence of DCEMs until Christmas 2023 when a Douane asked for them at Caen when we were leaving the country. We have taken our kids out of France on holiday several times a year since we got our TdS but nobody had mentioned DCEMs, not even the prefecture when we picked up our TdS!
Thanks for all of your advice. Think I’ll just try to add her DCEM to her applicaton whilst I’m waiting ANTS to come back to me and go from there. Hopefully it will help…
Thanks, Shiba. Had heard about financial help for driving licences. Think it’s a loan that the government pays the interest on…will investigate more IF we ever get her NEPH number!
