Can you pick fruit for free in France?

With the autumn harvest coming up and trees starting to fill up with apples, pears, plums, mirabelles and other seasonal produce, you might find yourself reaching to pick some up to taste.

In some cities and communes, residents can pick fruit for free but this is not always the case, so it is important to understand the local regulations before heading out with your basket.

One of the communes that has been allowing free fruit-picking is Villerupt, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, where trees whose fruit is available to be picked are marked with yellow ribbons. The idea is to prevent fruit from going to waste while giving local people the opportunity to access free seasonal produce.

“Rather than letting them end up on the ground, we might as well make the most of them and let our residents enjoy them,” Véronique Guillotin, the mayor of Villerupt, told Le Parisien.

In Angers (Maine-et-Loire) people are free to pick fruit from orchards spread across public spaces in the city, with the fruits on offer including apples, pears and cherries.

Meanwhile, in Lunel-Viel, in Hérault, the commune has planted 255 fruit trees and 91 vines since 2021 across parks, squares, public gardens, which are also open to the public for free picking.

What about fruit and vegetables on private land? 

The practice of picking produce that would otherwise go to waste has a long history in France, and is so well-established that there is even a term for it. 

It is called glanage, or gleaning, and involves picking up unwanted fruit to avoid it rotting on the ground. 

In a parliamentary response in 2017, the Agriculture Ministry called gleaning “an ancestral right that can only be exercised on someone else's land after the harvest has been removed.” 

This means waste fruit which are already on the ground and are not part of the harvest can be picked up.

The ministry said that gleaning is allowed during the day and without tools, provided the harvest has been completed. 

However, it is not allowed on fenced land, and municipalities can impose their own restrictions.

If you want to learn more about practice, the renowned French filmmaker Agnès Varda made a documentary about gleaning in 2000 called Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (released in English as The Gleaners and I). 

Gleaning is different from maraudage, taking cultivated fruit or vegetables before they have been harvested, and grappillage, collecting what remains on fruit trees or vines after the harvest.

In general, it is safest to assume that fruit and vegetables growing on private land cannot be picked unless you have the express permission of the owner of the land. 

Picking fruit without their permission could constitute theft under France’s penal code. The best approach is to check who owns the land and ask permission where appropriate.

Finally, the website Fallingfruit.org provides a global map of places where fruit can be picked for free, including in France.