You have opened an envelope, or an email from a French agency, and found a speeding notice. It may have reached a house in Britain, a hire-car desk, or a French address you left months ago. Paying can close the public case. Doing nothing can turn a fixed penalty into an increased fine and an enforceable title. Contesting, if the papers are wrong, can also take you out of the fixed-penalty track and into a police court, where the fine cannot be set below the sum you would have owed had you not challenged.

This note is for a British driver, or the keeper of a British-registered car, after Brexit. It is written from the texts in force on 1 October 2026 and from four judgments of the criminal chamber of the Cour de cassation read in full. It is not a substitute for the notice in your hand. GOV.UK, on its page about driving abroad, tells drivers to follow overseas rules, including local speed limits, and warns that a driver who does not may be breaking the law and may receive a fine. That warning does not turn a French notice into a British fixed penalty. French law decides the French notice. Only the court that hears a challenge decides that challenge.

Nothing here establishes that you were the driver, or that a particular sum is due on your facts. A card debit taken by a hire company is a contractual charge, governed by the contract you signed, not by the Code de la route. Several procedural articles cited below are marked for a deferred repeal on 1 January 2029. They were still applicable on 1 October 2026.

I. French speeding fine: what a British driver owes, and the deadline to pay or contest

A. France speeding ticket under 50 km/h, or 50 km/h over: the fixed penalty and the points rule

The document you have received is, in the ordinary case, an avis de contravention, a penalty notice for a contravention. A contravention is the lesser class of offence. It is not yet a judgment, and it is not a British fixed-penalty notice. The French fixed-penalty track, the amende forfaitaire, is a sum set by the Code of Criminal Procedure. Paying it extinguishes the public prosecution for the listed offences. Article 529 of that code says so, and it also sets the limit of the track: “la procédure de l’amende forfaitaire n’est pas applicable si plusieurs infractions, dont l’une au moins ne peut donner lieu à une amende forfaitaire, ont été constatées simultanément”. In plain terms, the fixed-penalty procedure does not apply if several offences were recorded at the same time and at least one of them cannot be dealt with by a fixed penalty. That limit matters later, when a stop produces more than a speed reading.

For an excess of less than 50 km/h, the offence itself is in article R. 413-14 of the Code de la route, in force since 1 January 2024. The first sentence is the one to read against the notice: “Le fait, pour tout conducteur d’un véhicule à moteur, de dépasser de moins de 50 km/h la vitesse maximale autorisée fixée par le présent code ou édictée par l’autorité investie du pouvoir de police est puni de l’amende prévue pour les contraventions de la quatrième classe.” An excess of less than 50 km/h is therefore punished by the fine for a fourth-class contravention. There is an immediate exception in the same paragraph. When the excess is less than 20 km/h and the maximum authorised speed is itself above 50 km/h, the fine is that of a third-class contravention. A notice that says “fourth class” for a 15 km/h excess on a 90 km/h road is, on that text, the wrong class. A notice that says “third class” for the same excess in a 30 km/h zone is also the wrong class, because the exception applies only where the limit is above 50 km/h.

The euro amounts are not in R. 413-14. They are in the regulatory part of the Code of Criminal Procedure, read on Légifrance on 1 October 2026. Article R. 49 fixes the ordinary fixed penalty: “68 euros pour les contraventions de la 3e classe” and “135 euros pour les contraventions de la 4e classe”. Article R. 49-9 fixes the reduced sum, the amende forfaitaire minorée, if it is paid in the short window: “45 euros pour les contraventions de la troisième classe” and “90 euros pour les contraventions de la quatrième classe”. Article R. 49-7 fixes the increased sum, the amende forfaitaire majorée: “180 euros pour les contraventions de la troisième classe” and “375 euros pour les contraventions de la quatrième classe”. Those three figures, 90, 135 and 375 euros for a fourth-class excess, are the ones a British driver should expect to see on an ordinary radar notice for an excess under 50 km/h where the limit is 50 km/h or below, or where the excess is 20 km/h or more. A third-class notice should show 45, 68 and 180 euros. A notice that uses another scale should be compared with these articles before it is paid.

The class also decides what else is in the background if the case leaves the fixed-penalty track. Article 131-13 of the Code pénal, the Criminal Code, sets the maximum fine a court may impose for a contravention: “450 euros au plus pour les contraventions de la 3e classe” and “750 euros au plus pour les contraventions de la 4e classe”. That maximum is not the sum on the notice. It is the ceiling if you are later convicted by the tribunal de police, the police court that hears contraventions. Article R. 413-14 adds complementary penalties where the excess is 30 km/h or more: suspension of the driving licence for up to three years, a ban on driving certain vehicles for up to three years, and an obligation to attend, at your own expense, a road-safety course. Those are court penalties. They are not added automatically by the act of receiving the notice. They become real if a court pronounces them.

Points are a separate French mechanism. Article R. 413-14, paragraph III, provides that every contravention in that article gives rise, de plein droit, as of right, to a reduction of the points on the driving licence, on this scale: four points for an excess of 40 km/h up to but not including 50 km/h; three points from 30 km/h up to but not including 40; two points from 20 km/h up to but not including 30; and one point from 5 km/h up to but not including 20. The paragraph, as returned by Légifrance, does not list a points reduction for an excess of less than 5 km/h. Article L. 223-1 of the Code de la route is the general points rule. It states that the licence carries a number of points, reduced as of right where the holder has committed an offence for which a reduction is provided, and that the reality of an offence leading to a withdrawal “est établie par le paiement d’une amende forfaitaire ou l’émission du titre exécutoire de l’amende forfaitaire majorée, l’exécution d’une composition pénale ou par une condamnation définitive”. Payment of the fixed penalty, or the issue of the enforceable title for the increased fine, or a final conviction, is what establishes the offence for points purposes. Paying because the notice is right is therefore not a neutral cash settlement. On that text, payment itself establishes the offence.

There is a carve-out that matters if you were the keeper and not the driver. Article L. 121-3 of the Code de la route makes the holder of the certificat d’immatriculation, the registration certificate, pecuniarily liable for listed offences, “à moins qu’il n’établisse l’existence d’un vol ou de tout autre événement de force majeure ou qu’il n’apporte tous éléments permettant d’établir qu’il n’est pas l’auteur véritable de l’infraction”. The same article is express that this person “n’est pas responsable pénalement de l’infraction”, and that a decision applying the article “n’entraîne pas retrait des points affectés au permis de conduire”. Pecuniary liability is not criminal guilt, and it does not, when the court applies that article, withdraw points. The list of offences to which this keeper liability applies is in article R. 121-6, in force since 29 December 2025. Point 8 of that list covers “Les vitesses maximales autorisées prévues aux articles L. 413-1 , R. 413-14 et R. 413-17”. Speeding, including the serious excess discussed next, is on the list.

An excess of 50 km/h or more is no longer the fourth-class contravention. Article L. 413-1 of the Code de la route, in force since 31 December 2025, makes it a délit, a more serious offence: “Le fait, pour tout conducteur d’un véhicule à moteur, de dépasser de 50 kilomètres à l’heure ou plus la vitesse maximale autorisée est puni de trois mois d’emprisonnement et de 3 750 euros d’amende.” The same article allows confiscation of the vehicle if the driver owns it, a suspension that cannot be limited to driving outside work, a ban on driving certain vehicles for up to five years, a road-safety course, and cancellation of the licence with a ban on applying for a new one for up to three years. Paragraph III withdraws, as of right, half the maximum number of points. The article does not, in the text returned on 1 October 2026, convert that half into a figure. This note therefore does not invent one.

The same article L. 413-1, at paragraph IV, now opens a fixed-penalty door even for that délit: “l’action publique peut être éteinte, y compris en cas de récidive, par le versement d’une amende forfaitaire d’un montant de 300 euros. Le montant de l’amende forfaitaire minorée est de 250 euros et le montant de l’amende forfaitaire majorée est de 600 euros.” A notice for 50 km/h or more may therefore show 250, 300 or 600 euros, not 90, 135 or 375. Paying the sum the law fixes can extinguish the public prosecution, including where the driver is a repeat offender, because paragraph IV says “y compris en cas de récidive”. That phrase matters. Article 495-17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is the general frame for a délit fixed penalty, says the procedure is not applicable in legal recidivism “sauf lorsque la loi en dispose autrement”. Article L. 413-1 is the statute that disposes otherwise for this offence. Article 495-17 still excludes a minor, and still excludes the procedure where several offences were recorded together and at least one cannot be a fixed penalty. A 50 km/h excess recorded at the same moment as an offence outside the fixed-penalty list is not, on those combined texts, a case in which the 300 euro door is simply assumed to be open.

If the vehicle was hired, article L. 121-3 moves the pecuniary liability: “Lorsque le véhicule était loué à un tiers, la responsabilité pécuniaire prévue au premier alinéa incombe au locataire”, subject to the reservations in the first paragraph of article L. 121-2. The locataire is the hirer. The hire company’s name on the French or foreign registration certificate does not, on that sentence, leave the public fine with the company once the car was rented to you. What the company may debit from your card is a different question, answered by the rental contract, not by L. 121-3.

B. Pay a French speeding fine within 45 days, or face the increased fine and the enforceable title

The clock is in articles 529-1 and 529-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Article 529-1 allows payment either to the officer at the roadside or “auprès du service indiqué dans l’avis de contravention dans les quarante-cinq jours qui suivent la constatation de l’infraction ou, si cet avis est ultérieurement envoyé à l’intéressé, dans les quarante-cinq jours qui suivent cet envoi”. Forty-five days from the finding, or forty-five days from the later sending of the notice. Article 529-2 then states the alternative: “le contrevenant doit s’acquitter du montant de l’amende forfaitaire, à moins qu’il ne formule dans le même délai une requête tendant à son exonération auprès du service indiqué dans l’avis de contravention”. You pay, or you file a requête en exonération, a request for exemption, with the service named on the notice, within the same period. “A défaut de paiement ou d’une requête présentée dans le délai de quarante-cinq jours, l’amende forfaitaire est majorée de plein droit et recouvrée au profit du Trésor public en vertu d’un titre rendu exécutoire par le ministère public.” If you neither pay nor file that request within forty-five days, the fine is increased as of right and collected under a titre exécutoire, an enforceable title signed by the public prosecutor’s office.

The reduced sum has a shorter window. Article 529-8 provides that the minorée may be paid to the officer at the time of the finding, or within fifteen days of the finding, or within fifteen days of the later sending of the notice. After that, “le contrevenant est redevable de l’amende forfaitaire”. The ordinary 135 euros, or 68 euros, becomes the sum due. For the délit of 50 km/h or more, article 495-18 uses the same structure: forty-five days to pay or to request exemption, fifteen days for the reduced 250 euros, and, in default, an increase as of right and an enforceable title. Service-public.fr, on the page Amende forfaitaire en cas de contravention au code de la route, consulted on 1 October 2026, also describes a sixty-day period where the notice is paid by bank card online. That practical statement is not a second contest deadline. Article 529-2, as returned by Légifrance, ties the request for exemption to the same period as payment of the ordinary fixed penalty, and it names forty-five days as the period after which the increase arises as of right. The deadline printed on your own notice is the operational date. A contest posted on day fifty, in the hope that a card-payment window still protects it, is a risk this note does not underwrite.

Once the fine has been increased, article R. 49-6 requires the notice of the increased fine to state that voluntary payment within one month of the date the notice was sent reduces the sum due by 20 per cent. That reduction is a payment facility. It is not a finding that the original notice was lawful. Article 530 then governs the challenge to the increased fine, called a réclamation. Within thirty days of the sending of the notice inviting payment of the increased fine, the person may file a reasoned réclamation with the public prosecutor’s office, and that réclamation cancels the enforceable title in respect of the fine challenged. The same article adds a road-traffic limit that British keepers miss: “S’il s’agit d’une contravention au code de la route, la réclamation n’est toutefois plus recevable à l’issue d’un délai de trois mois lorsque l’avis d’amende forfaitaire majorée est envoyé par lettre recommandée à l’adresse figurant sur le certificat d’immatriculation du véhicule, sauf si le contrevenant justifie qu’il a, avant l’expiration de ce délai, déclaré son changement d’adresse au service d’immatriculation des véhicules”. If the increased-fine notice was sent by registered letter to the address on the registration certificate, the réclamation is no longer receivable after three months, unless a change of address was declared to the registration service before that period ended. In that last case, the person owes only the ordinary fixed penalty if it is paid within forty-five days, which cancels the title as to the increase.

For a UK-registered car, the address on the registration certificate is the address on the British logbook, not a French carte grise you never held. The three-month outer limit is therefore capable of running from a registered letter sent to that British address. A keeper who has moved, inside France or back to Britain, and who has not declared the change to the registration service that holds the certificate, should not assume that a réclamation filed in month four will still be heard. Article 530 also keeps a réclamation receivable for so long as the penalty is not time-barred, where no enforcement step and no other proof shows that the person knew of the increased fine. That saving is real. It is not a reason to wait. The notice, the proof of sending, and the address used are the facts that decide which sentence of article 530 applies.

Silence is often described, on forums, as a one-year expiry. Article 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure does provide that “L’action publique des contraventions se prescrit par une année révolue à compter du jour où l’infraction a été commise.” The public prosecution of a contravention is time-barred one full year after the day of the offence. That sentence is not the end of the analysis once an enforceable title has been issued. On 25 February 2025, the criminal chamber, in appeal no. 24-85.473, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:CR00203, quashed a judgment of the tribunal de police de Créteil which had treated a speeding case as time-barred. The court held: “Il résulte de ces textes qu’en matière de contraventions donnant lieu au recouvrement de l’amende forfaitaire majorée prévue par l’article 529-2, alinéa 2, du code de procédure pénale, il suffit, pour que la prescription de l’action publique ne soit pas acquise, que le délai soit interrompu par la délivrance du titre exécutoire, qui fait courir la prescription de la peine, puis, après la réclamation du contrevenant, que la citation soit délivrée avant l’expiration du nouveau délai de prescription de l’action publique ouvert à la suite de cette réclamation.” An enforceable title issued within the year stops the public-action clock and starts the penalty clock. A later réclamation opens a fresh one-year period for the public action, which a summons can interrupt. The Créteil court was quashed for collapsing those stages into a single missed year.

What this run does not establish is enforcement of that French title on British soil after Brexit. No article read on Légifrance on 1 October 2026 itself extends a French police-court enforceable title into the United Kingdom. Article 530 says the title is executed under the rules of this code for the execution of police-court judgments. Those are French rules. A reader who never returns to France should not be told, on that basis, either that the debt is harmless or that a French bailiff will attend a British address. Both statements would go beyond the texts. The verified consequences are the French ones: the increased sum, the title, the points rule if the offence is established against a licence to which L. 223-1 applies, a possible prosecution if you contest or are later stopped in France, and a possible court ban on driving in France.

II. Contest a French speeding fine after Brexit: the ANTAI request, the hire car, and a UK licence

A. How to contest a French speeding ticket if you were not the driver, or the notice is the issue

A challenge to the original notice is not a letter of complaint. It is the requête en exonération in article 529-2, sent to the service named on the avis de contravention. For the offences covered by article L. 121-3, article 529-10 makes that request receivable only on strict conditions. It must be sent by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, using the form attached to the notice, or by the dematerialised route an order provides, and it must be accompanied either by one of the listed documents or by a consignation. The listed documents are a receipt for a complaint of theft or destruction of the vehicle, or of the offence of plate cloning, or a copy of a destruction declaration; a signed letter giving the identity, the address and the driving-licence reference of the person presumed to have been driving; copies of the declaration of sale and of its acknowledgement in the registration system; or a document showing that an automated driving system was active. The alternative is “un document démontrant qu’il a été acquitté une consignation préalable d’un montant égal à celui de l’amende forfaitaire”. That consignation, a security deposit equal to the fixed penalty, “n’est pas assimilable au paiement de l’amende forfaitaire et ne donne pas lieu au retrait des points du permis de conduire”. It is not payment, and it does not withdraw points.

That sentence decides the shape of most British contests. If you were not the driver, the statute gives you a document route: name the person, with an address and a licence reference, or produce the theft, sale or plate-cloning paper. If you were the keeper, you do not wish to name anyone, and your ground is that the measurement, the place, the speed limit or the class is wrong, the request is receivable, on article 529-10, only if the consignation accompanies it. A free-form email to the Agence nationale de traitement automatisé des infractions, the ANTAI, the national agency that processes automated notices, does not meet that text. The official explanation of designation and contest is on the agency’s own page, Désignation ou contestation. French commentary often lists ten possible grounds, from “I was not driving” to a defective sign or an unchecked device. Those grounds can be real. They do not replace the form, the registered letter or the electronic route, and the document or the consignation. A technical defence is for the prosecutor and, if the case goes on, for the court. It is not a reason to omit the condition of receivability.

The hire-car file is a second trap, and it is the one most British visitors meet. Article L. 121-6, in force since 31 December 2025, applies where an offence recorded under the automated-control article L. 130-9 was committed with a vehicle whose registered keeper is a company, or which a company holds. The legal representative must, within forty-five days of the sending or delivery of the notice, indicate to the authority named on the notice “l’identité et l’adresse de la personne physique qui conduisait ce véhicule”, unless theft, plate cloning or another event of force majeure is established. Failure is punished by the fine for a fourth-class contravention or, where the underlying offence is a délit, by the fine for a fifth-class contravention. A hire company that does not name the driver within forty-five days is therefore exposed to its own fine, separate from the speeding sum. A British hirer should ask, in writing, what the company sent and on what date. The answer decides whether the public fine has been pointed at you, at the company, or at neither.

The Court of Cassation has already refused the argument that only the corporate hirer, and never the hire company, can be pursued. In a judgment of 1 September 2020, appeal no. 19-85.465, published in the Bulletin, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2020:CR01157, the criminal chamber rejected the appeal of a vehicle-hire company convicted for failing to transmit the driver’s identity after a speed check. The court held: “Il résulte de l’article L. 121-6 du code de la route, qui prévoit la responsabilité pénale du représentant légal de la personne morale bailleresse, titulaire du certificat d’immatriculation, comme celle de celui de la personne morale qui détient le véhicule, que peuvent être poursuivies tant la personne morale titulaire du certificat d’immatriculation que la personne morale locataire du véhicule.” It added that, where the corporate keeper has rented the vehicle to another company, the keeper’s representative must, within forty-five days, indicate the identity and address of the natural person who was driving, and, if that identity is unknown, can be discharged only by indicating, in the same conditions, the identity and address of the corporate hirer. The judgment applied the text then in force. It is cited here for that holding, not as a commentary on the wording adopted on 31 December 2025. The current article still imposes the forty-five-day identification duty, and it still punishes the failure. A private British hirer is not that legal representative. The hirer is, under L. 121-3, the person on whom pecuniary liability for the speeding offence itself can fall. The two debts should not be mixed up when the credit-card statement arrives.

Naming another person is not a courtesy. Article 529-10 requires identity, address and the reference of that person’s driving licence. Signing that letter when you know the statement is untrue is not a way of closing the file. This note does not add a penalty for a false designation beyond the texts read today. It does say that the letter is a formal indication to the prosecuting authority, and that the person named can receive the enforceable title, as the facts of the 25 February 2025 case illustrate: the keeper designated another driver, a title was issued against that driver, and the later cancellation of the title reopened the pursuit against the keeper. Designating a spouse, a friend or a colleague to “take the points” is not a private family arrangement. It is the document in article 529-10, and it moves the public file.

B. Tribunal de police, the minimum fine if you lose, and a UK licence in Paris and the rest of France

If the request is receivable, article 530-1 gives the public prosecutor’s office a choice. It may drop the prosecution, proceed under the penal-order or police-court provisions, or tell the person that an unmotivated réclamation, or one not accompanied by the notice, is irreceivable. The article then sets a floor that contesting does not remove. “En cas de condamnation, l’amende prononcée ne peut être inférieure au montant de l’amende ou de l’indemnité forfaitaire” in the ordinary-track cases, “ni être inférieure au montant de l’amende forfaitaire majorée” where the person is already in the increased-fine track. In the cases under article 529-10, if there is a conviction, the fine cannot be lower than that floor increased by 10 per cent. A successful contest can end in a discontinuance or an acquittal, and article 530-1 then requires the consignation to be repaid. An unsuccessful contest does not return you to the reduced 90 euro figure. The court cannot go below the fixed penalty you would have owed, and in the consignation cases it cannot go below that floor plus 10 per cent.

The criminal chamber applied that floor on 20 May 2025, in appeal no. 24-86.765, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:CR00656. A company had been pursued for failing to transmit the driver’s identity after a speed excess of less than 20 km/h recorded by the automated centre. It had filed a request for exemption. The police court at Limoges set the fine at 135 euros. The court stated the rule: “Selon ce texte, en cas de condamnation d’un contrevenant qui a formulé une requête en exonération d’amende forfaitaire, l’amende prononcée ne peut être inférieure à celle qui aurait été due si l’intéressé n’avait pas présenté de réclamation.” It then held that the police court had disregarded the text, “alors que le montant de l’amende ne pouvait être inférieur à celui de l’amende forfaitaire prévue pour les personnes morales, soit 675 euros”, and it fixed the fine at 675 euros. That figure is the court’s application to a legal person. An individual British driver should not read 675 euros as the personal floor. The personal floor is the individual fixed penalty, or the increased fine if that is the track, as articles R. 49, R. 49-7 and 530-1 state it. The 675 euro outcome is the warning for a British company car, a British hire company, or any reader pursued as a personne morale, a legal person. The warning for an individual is different, and it is still serious: the police court cannot undercut the fixed penalty because you asked to be exempted.

There is a nullity that does cancel the notice, and it is the one in article 529. On 18 November 2025, in appeal no. 25-80.227, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:CR01480, the criminal chamber quashed a judgment of the tribunal de police de Paris. The driver had been dealt with, after one roadside check, both for driving under the influence of narcotics, which had ended in a penal order, and by a fixed-penalty notice for changing direction without signalling. She contested the notice. The Paris police court convicted her and fined her 150 euros, accepting that the procedure was unlawful but holding that the report of the contravention remained valid. The Court of Cassation set that aside. It repeated article 529: “la procédure de l’amende forfaitaire n’est pas applicable si plusieurs infractions, dont l’une au moins ne peut donner lieu à une amende forfaitaire, ont été constatées simultanément”. It held that the fixed-penalty procedure was not applicable to the contravention, because a simultaneous offence, the drug-driving délit, could not be dealt with by a fixed penalty. The dispositif is short: “DIT que l’avis de contravention émis à l’encontre de Mme [J] le 21 octobre 2023 est nul”. The notice was null. The case was not a speeding case. The article it applies is the article that also governs a speeding notice. If your speed reading was recorded at the same moment as an offence that cannot take the fixed-penalty track, this is the text to put before the prosecutor, and the Paris judgment shows what the supreme court did when a police court tried to save the notice. It is not a general nullity of every radar letter.

Where the case is sent on, the court that hears a contravention is the tribunal de police. The judgments read in this run were those of Limoges, Créteil and Paris. The notice names the service. If the offence was recorded in Paris, or the file has been sent to the Paris prosecutor’s officer, the 18 November 2025 judgment shows the tribunal de police de Paris as the court that heard the contest. In the wider Île-de-France, the Créteil judgment shows that a suburban police court can be the court whose time-bar analysis is later quashed. What you bring is practical and narrow: the notice, proof of the address to which it was sent, the consignation receipt, any photograph or measurement annex, and the declaration of a change of address if article 530’s three-month limit is in play. The competent office is the one named on the paper, not a Paris office chosen because you would prefer to be heard there.

A UK licence is not rewritten by a sentence this run has not found. Article L. 223-1 attaches points to “le permis de conduire” and treats the offence as established by payment, by the enforceable title of the increased fine, or by a final conviction. Articles R. 413-14 and L. 413-1 then set the withdrawal, including half the maximum number of points for an excess of 50 km/h or more. No text read on 1 October 2026 instructs the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to endorse a British photocard with those French points. GOV.UK’s driving-abroad page, quoted above, warns of a local fine. It does not describe a transfer of French points onto a UK licence. A French court can still suspend the right to drive, or ban the driving of certain vehicles, under R. 413-14 and L. 413-1. That is a restriction on driving in France. It is not, on the texts read here, an automatic British disqualification. A reader who lives in France and must exchange a UK licence faces a separate procedure, examined in the note on exchanging a UK driving licence in France after Brexit, the one-year ANTS deadline and a refusal. This note does not decide that exchange. It does say that payment, an enforceable title, or a conviction is what article L. 223-1 treats as establishing the offence, and that a court ban pronounced in France is a French restriction whatever the country that issued the plastic card.

Justice.fr explains, for readers whose increased fine arrived without the original notice, how to contest an increased fine when the penalty notice was not received. That path is the réclamation in article 530, not a new ground of defence. It remains receivable, on the text, for so long as the penalty is not time-barred, where the person did not know of the increased fine, and subject to the three-month road-traffic limit where a registered letter went to the address on the registration certificate. A British keeper who finds the increased notice months later, at an old address, should date the first knowledge and keep the envelope. The Créteil judgment is the reason not to assume that the year since the radar flash has already saved the file.

Conclusion

A French speeding notice after Brexit is a French fixed penalty, or, at 50 km/h or more, a délit that since 31 December 2025 can still be closed by a fixed penalty of 250, 300 or 600 euros if that track is open. Under 50 km/h, the ordinary figures on the texts in force on 1 October 2026 are 45, 68 and 180 euros for a third-class excess, and 90, 135 and 375 euros for a fourth-class excess. The reduced sum is a fifteen-day payment. The request for exemption travels with the forty-five-day period in article 529-2. Silence produces the increase as of right, and an enforceable title. A title issued within the year stops the simple one-year expiry of the public prosecution, as the criminal chamber held on 25 February 2025.

Contesting is a formal request, with the form, and with either a statutory document or a consignation that is not an admission and does not withdraw points. If you lose, the court cannot set the fine below the fixed penalty you would have owed, and a company can be held to the legal-person floor, which the chamber fixed at 675 euros in the judgment of 20 May 2025. If the speed reading was taken together with an offence outside the fixed-penalty list, article 529 can make the notice null, as the chamber held on 18 November 2025 in a case heard by the tribunal de police de Paris. A UK licence is not, on the texts read today, endorsed by DVLA because a French radar flashed. A French suspension, if a court pronounces one, restricts driving in France. The notice, the address it was sent to, and the contract with any hire company prevail over this general account. Only the court seised of a challenge decides that challenge.