Except if you are caught speeding and get points - then you have to change to a French license.
Sue I thought about deliberately getting caught speeding in order to expedite a licence exchange.
Someone advised me on another thread that the points would be deducted from my virtual French licence and applied when the ārealā one was issued.
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It is a legal requirement to update an address on a D/L, punishable by up to a fine of Ā£1,000. However the DVLA is silent on whether it invalidates a licence.
This still doesnāt answer how you would get a replacement licence if you lose your UK one (which you havenāt been able to swap so is still the one being used to drive here) and no longer have a uk address and/or UK resident. I assume the photo date on the front is the date ANTS use to determine that your UK has has just six month left?
ā¦but I seem to have been fortunate as I applied in Dec, with an expiry date of Augā and once the exchange deal was done ANTS couldnāt have been more efficientā¦but my wife would be in the doo-doo if she lost (out of her purse) her licencec as it doesnāt expire until 2027
@anon90504988 ā¦hi, most helpful.
I assume this correspondence arose because you were concerned that on a visit to UK you had a licence bearing a no longer valid address?
The reply makes the position very clear, albeit it being eight years old there is no reason to suspect it has changed?.
Re l getting a replacement for a lost licence, I guess that would be a challenge and result in an interesting, to say the least, set of arguments with the DVLA. If they wonāt send to anywhere but the adress they have, and if it canāt be retrieved from there, it means you canāt show a valid licence and ANTS would not issue a French one as you canāt provide a UK one to swapā¦even if they relaxed the six month ruleā¦so the moral is donāt lose your UK one.
At least we still at the moment have a small UK flat where OH licence is regāā¦and my swap via ANTS went through without a hitch in eight weeks after the deal 
There is/was? Another way.
Before exchanging my UK license some years ago I applied to renew my UK license while living in France. It didnāt arrive and when I inquired was told that they would only post to UK address. By this time my UK license was out of date.
DVLA provided me with a certificate of my driving rights which they posted to me here in France.
This attestation was acceptable to the prefecture and my French licence was issued.
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ā¦as you said that some years ago, not the same dealing now with ANTS online as your local sub-Prefecture!
There will be a modern-day way through the mazeā¦ similar to your experienceā¦ of that one can be sure.
If necessary storming the Prefectureā¦ waving all the bits of paper 
Wavingā¦in your dreamsā¦ANTS reign supreme in the land of driving licences.
Since folk are worrying about the DL being lost/stolen/missingā¦ why not make a copy of it, so that you have all the details (copy document) to report to the Gendarmerieā¦ who are the first step (I believe) to getting into the system for replacement etcā¦
sometimes, things can be sortedā¦ with advice/help from the Prefecture.
It is not necessarily that easy to speak with someone who can give you that advice, but it is not impossibleā¦
DVLA require that an address (in the UK) at which the licence holder can normally be contacted and not, specifically, where they reside.
If that address is for someone with whom the licence holder is confident will forward any mail related to the licence e.g. renewals or penalty notices then it would meet the requirements.
So glad this topic was raised as my āpermis de conduireā has been languishing in my shoulder bag for the last 27 years.
Shoulder bag has been replaced a few times during those years, but not the permis.
So glad to know that I wonāt need to replace it until 2033 when I shall be 92, by which time I shall probably be doolally, racing around excitedly in a super-powered electric wheelchair!
If Iām still around in 2033 will I be able to keep my old permis - Iād like to frame it and hang it up somewhere - a relic?
Just remember that it is in fact illegal to renew your UK license if you are actually resident in France.
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True, you have to tick box confirming you are a uk resident .
Deliberate falsification could bring nasty consequences.
Uk gov may well run a check across other data bases to see if you have declared yourself to be none residentā¦for starters: HMRC and renewal of passport, and application for a S1
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Iāve still got my pink French Permis de Conduireā¦ and fully intend to be around in 2033ā¦ 
Whether I will change to a modern version at that timeā¦ who knowsā¦ but Iām determined to be positiveā¦ and hoping that the world will still existā¦
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My old boss lives in Nice and has reached 98 in really good health. Heās ailing a little now but has a daughter and two sons, and their families, who visit from the UK from time to time, and he has a French live-in carer now ā he has a gammy knee which he refuses to have replaced, so getting around is difficult.
He has always walked, eaten healthily and in moderation, and is not a drinker and is an artist as well as an architect. He has oil painted most of the notable buildings in Nice over the last 30 years or so.
He has always been busy, mentally and physically, which no doubt has contributed to his long life.
A lesson to us all.
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It seems there is an orchestrated campaign going on to not let seniors automatically keep their licences in France.
Currently it seems this is policed
- by individuals themselves
- by their families,
- by insurance companies (by pricing weighting various factors including location, accident history and age, and insurers only offering impossible pricing as soon as the score from those factors gets out of line)
- by the police (points or withdrawal of licences) if necessary.
I note that the % of drivers killed on the roads is being quoted as high for age range 18-24. When 18-25 came more naturally to me as a peak age range as often quoted in the UK, for inexperienced drivers combined with a higher rate of drug or alcohol use.
The campaigners for the addition of new law point out that the % of senior drivers killed (across their, say, 25-30 year age range depending on if āseniorā starts at age 65 or 70) is just, fractionally, higher than the % of drivers killed in the considerably smaller range of just 7 years 18-24 the campaigners choose to quote, than they quote for seniors across the much bigger age range of seniors.
I smell the bull$hit of statistical manipulation.
The organisation ā40millions dāautomobilistesā has spotted it too. They are opposed to adding a specific law to the already existing other sanctions. They have also pointed out
-
85 % des tuĆ©s et des responsables dāaccidents au volant sont des hommes. On pourrait trĆØs bien avoir un collectif de femmes ā¦ disant quāil faut leur faire repasser le permis tous les 5 ans parce quāils ne sont pas capables de conduire puisque, manifestement, ils ne sont pas capables de conduire.
-
ā¦Cāest stigmatiser une catĆ©gorie dāĆ¢ge sans aucun fondement statistique ā¦ les chiffres nous disent que les plus impliquĆ©s dans les accidents mortels, ce sont les jeunes, hommes, par lāalcool au volant
I think there is a campaign (?) to ensure that drivers are medically fit enough to be able to driveā¦
seems reasonable to me
As long as it applies to all drivers, not just to those over a certain age.
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