UK licences are still legally accepted in France for French residents, so not sure what the problem would be with police or insurers. In fact, it’s only possible to exchange the UK licence if it’s within 6 months of the expiry date.
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Legal here but not in the UK yet can’t swap for a French licence, I’m just stuck like probably 0000’s of other Brits.
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I take your point, but I think the problem would be that the licence holder hasn’t been resident in the UK for a great many years. One was supposed to exchange one’s UK licence for a French one after Brexit. My wife’s UK licence still had many years to run but she was eventually able to exchange it for a French one a couple of years ago.
I know people who’ve been here for many years and are still driving around on licenses and UK plates, even though you’re supposed to re-register the latter within a month or so of becoming resident.
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But only permitted once the UK licence is within 6 months of expiring.
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That wasn’t originally the case, as I wrote above, my wife exchanged her UK licence for a French one even though it had many years to run. However, she was eager to cut her ties with the UK and did it as soon as possible. If one delayed, it was a different situation because there was a massive backlog of applications due to Brexit and the shift from applications being handled by the departmental prefecture to a national cnetre in Nantes (and, just to be certain the SNFU was total, the intro of a new computer licensing system).
Can,t understand the logic behind all this,if your UK licence was due for renewal in 2020 you had no choice but to renew it in the UK as there was no agreement in place for exchanges,UK Gov to blame for not including it in any Brexit Agreement.So now there is an agreement that states for some unknown reason that your UK licence is legal until it has six months left on it.It makes no sense at all.Therefore you have to run about for nine and a half years explaining to uninformed Gendarmes what the legal situation is.Brexit cock up sums it up.
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If you were a UK resident of France there was a post-Brexit procedure that had been extant since 2017(?) for exchanging your UK licence for a French one
I can’t remember who it was, but from memory, someone earlier very helpfully posted a couple of docs to keep in your car to avoid any long winded unnecessary ‘gendarme’ explanations…for anyone still having to continue using their UK licence.
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I could give you a dozen examples of friends who tried and failed to swap their licences well before Brexit happened at the end of 2019, some prefectures just weren’t interested because there was no need to swap plus of course ANTS was looming with the applications going on-line.
Personally I’m not bothered anymore, my licence is legal here and I rarely drive in the UK so my law breaking is minimal.
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You are a long term resident, so less likely to cause problems. For those that are still in their first 5 years this could cause a big problem. The date of their renewed licence would not match their sworn statement about their residency in France, and if uncovered could cause their WARP to be withdrawn for a break in residency. Probably unlikely, but it is possible and imagine the nightmare if it did happen as one would have no come back.
OH was in similar situation, and had many failed attempts to change his licence. He held his nerve, and now has the ministre d’interieur statement in the car inside his UK licence.
So I repeat, don’t do it.
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Most important thing is to maintain a valid licence.The way that this has been handled by both Governments has been shambolic.No agreement in the Brexit fiasco,everything on hold for months and months,not accepting any new applications,then they finally come out with an agreement that allows you to drive on your UK licence after all the fuss.Meanwhile they expect people to function for months or years without a valid licence.Look after yourself is the best advice.
Yes, there is. It states that unless date 4b has less than six months remaining, you cannot apply to swap it for a French license - unless its expired, lost or damaged.
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The other reason to swop is apparently as a resident you do something that requires points to be deducted from your licence. In that case I gather you are indeed supposed to send it to ANTS so that it can be swopped for a French licence starting off with the deduction.
A little extreme as a tactic though…
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That’s the case now, but for a long time the Brexit vote, one could exchange a UK licence for a French one regardless of how long was left on the former. Both my wife and I applied straight away and got French licences long before the expiry reg was changed.
Has anyone actually disagreed with that?
My point is that for a long time people had the opportunity to change without any hassle, when there was an obvious need to replace one’s UK licence as it would no longer be an EU one.
I don’t understand why so many people other than those newly arrived in France left it so late.
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I applied for mine in July, received it this week - there has been a huge delay, probably down to numbers. It seems to be clearing with a lot of people receiving their new licences in the last couple of weeks! (I’m a member of a Facebook group that was really useful for exchange and lots are reporting success at the moment!)
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Had your UK licence run out?
Well, I guess many folks had many other things to do which were of a higher priority at the time, so changing the licence just got moved back, and then Brexit comes along and all the rules of the game change. Unfortunately it happens sometimes. We all end up putting something off, at some time, and maybe don’t do ‘it’ within the perfect/ideal time frame, so I guess that makes us human. 
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You must be so relieved.
As I said, my friend got his last week (in less than 3 months), so ANTS are possibly getting caught up now.
However, I think there are certain hiccups with individual applications such as @Mat_Davies has experienced and the stress due to that is ghastly.