What happens if they don’t have a good reason ?
Actually France is pretty close to the EU average. I lived in Madeira for twenty-three years and saw the building of the new Via Rapidas or motorways. Before the network was completed most drivers showed respect for other road users. Then the number of vehicles increased at least thirty fold and the good manners went out the window. The Madeirans haven’t yet adopted the annoying habit from the Algarve where the instant the traffic light says go the guy behind you is hooting his horn.
I’ve driven in many countries - France, Italy, UK, Slovenia, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia. To name most of them. Each of them has their own way of driving. The Italians love to rub the paint off your rear bumper at one hundred and sixty kilometres per hour. The French cause great confusion on roundabouts by indicating that they are leaving the roundabout but not necessarily at the next exit. Obviously, unless they are going to go around the roundabout all day long, they will be leaving the roundabout. Logic and reason would say that indicating means the next exit is your exit.
But that said, wherever you are driving, drive defensively.
One of my favourite gripes!
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My biggest gripe is being able to go legally around a two entry/exit roundabout in the right hand lane if you want to exit left.
How mad and dangerous is that ? My local roundabout proves the point. It is littered with car debris.
And right hand prioties than only serve to kill people and the environment for good measure and your gearbox. Slow down speed up…slow down speed up. Its madness.
The French expression is “Moi d’abord”.
My experience suggests that young French women drive quicker than most, it seems a part of their character, but that they do it subconsciously and are unaware of the danger.
And like all the contributors to this thread, I’m sure all French drivers are worse drivers than me.
There isn’t a country I’ve driven in that has better drivers than made. I am the greatest driver! Ha Ha Ha.
They are looking at being stricter on Aministering the penalties… which are too-often watered-down by the Judges…
Its not as simple as" often watered down by judges" what you see is maximum fines etc.Each case is taken on the dossier presented not on some arbitary list
“watered down” is my wry translation for
“Mais les peines prononcées sont généralement moins lourdes”
The article goes into it all at length…
Here’s a good example of how bad the driving in Boredaux can be…
This is rue Georges Mandel, where the speed limit is 30KM/h:
And here’s the speeding tickets issued on that street in just the last 24 hours:
As of the time of writing this post, someone was caught driving at over 100KM/h at almost 08h00 yesterday morning 
Virtually every day there are reports of Traffic Police stopping folk (wherever) who’ve been doing crazy speeds… the truly excessive cases nearly always involve drugs or drink… or both.
We have traffic diverted from the N79 to our D14 and if hadn’t seen the cab of a huge lorry coming round the corner and know that there is a peculiar camber and drop and stopped, we would have been wiped out.