Police across France hunt abandoned cars to free up spaces in urban areas
Vehicles cannot be parked on a public road in the same place for more than seven days
Some 400 vehicles were impounded for long-term parking in Metz last year
Mikhail Gnatkovskiy/Shutterstock
French police officers are removing abandoned cars from many urban areas across the country to free up parking spaces for local residents.
The action comes after people in France have reported frustration with finding somewhere to park in city and town centres.
Some 67% of drivers in France believe that parking in centres has become more difficult in the past five years, according to a study by polling agency Ipsos, for car space rental company Yespark.
In the city of Metz (Moselle), 400 vehicles were removed for long-term stationnement abusif (obstructive parking) last year, reports BFM.
Charges for stationnement abusif come into place when a car is “parked on a public road in the same place for more than seven days. A shorter period may be set by municipal decree,” reads the justice.fr website.
A fine of €35 (which can increase to €75 if payment is late) is then issued to the vehicle’s owner. The car may also be clamped or impounded if the owner is absent or refuses to move the vehicle themselves. The owner is also responsible for any fees for impounding a vehicle, which can amount to over €200.
Similar crackdown initiatives have also launched in le Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Romilly-sur-Seine (Aube) and Achères (Yvelines), where more than 75 vehicles have been removed from the streets and impounded since October 2025, states La Gazette en Yvelines.
Local residents are encouraged to contact their local police station to report cars that remain in the same spot for more than seven days.
Abandoned vehicles in shopping centre car parks
Shop owners located near Les 7 Collines shopping centre in Nîmes claim their free private car park, which has 250 spaces, is increasingly saturated with vehicles that do not belong to customers.
“Some vehicles stay in our car park for a week. Very often, these are people who go on holiday and walk to the train station,” a local bar owner told France Bleu.
To dissuade drivers from leaving their cars for long periods of time, the retailers have installed an informative sign and put flyers on car windshields, but fear that more serious action will be required if the situation does not improve.
Parking spaces to disappear from urban centres
Despite increased efforts to remove abandoned cards, drivers may continue to find it difficult to park their vehicles in town centres as tens of thousands of parking spaces are expected to disappear from urban areas by the end of this year.
It comes as a law voted for at the end of 2019 (as part of the transport law, la Loi d’orientation des mobilités) is set to come into force.
It specifies that by December 31, 2026, city and town centre authorities must remove all vehicle parking spaces that are located less than five metres away from pedestrian crossings to improve visibility - with no guarantee that they will be replaced elsewhere (such as in underground car parks, for example).
Around 20,000 spaces are expected to disappear in Paris alone.
