IF YOU WISH TO 'SPEED' IN FRANCE THIS YEAR - DON'T!

Charles Bremner, The London Times Correspondent and one of my favorite reporters, just posted this warning on his London Times Blog this morning.

'Watch out if you are one of those foreigners who to treat French motorways as an invitation to drive flat out. You may find a new beast in your rearview mirror.

The Gendarmerie have just bought a fleet of pumped up ... er, Renaults, that will enable them to catch up with all but the fastest law-breakers. All right, the words Renault Mégane smack more of the school run than race track, but the gendarmes have a special edition of the already sporty RS version, which they say will do 255 kph or 160 mph. That should be enough to collar most of the Britons, Dutch and others who blast down the autoroutes of France believing they are immune to the speed limit (while speed cameras now force the poor French to obey it more or less). Only the Porsches, Bentleys and other expensive bollides will be able to outrun them.

The French have taken a while to catch up with police forces in other countries who long ago adopted high-performance cars. It's still rare to see patrols on the motorways and when you do, they are usually vans or family estate cars and there even still a few ancient Renault 4s around. For the past five years, the gendarmes have been running a few fast Subaru Imprezas. These will be replaced by 70 Renaults.

The Gendarmerie has also finally given up its attachment to dull blue, thus near invisible, patrol cars. The new Renaults are decked out in high visibility stripes, though they keep the military blue as the overall colour. In another concession to modernity, the cars will have a signal panel which can order drivers to "Suivez-Moi" (Follow Me) . The instructions will be in French only of course.
The national police (quite distinct from the Gendarmerie) have also lately adopted new paintwork for their vehicles, which patrol the towns and cities. This consists of the same old white with tasteful red stripes but the effect is more stylish. Still, nothing as vulgar as the dog's dinner in Day Glo that is sported by British police and emergency vehicles. "