The roads of France are loading up for long weekend returns from Ascension. The day of Sunday May 29 is classified black by Bison Fûté in the sense of returns. The peak of the slowdowns was reached at 12:35 p.m. with 877 kilometers of traffic jams at the national level. At 4 p.m., there are still 720 km of slowdowns in France. In the Paris region, the peak was expected between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. “The situation is really comparable to a summer weekend, explains on franceinfo Alexis Assael, manager of the Vinci Autoroutes traffic info center in Avignon. This very busy situation will intensify in the hours to come with heavy traffic, particularly along the Mediterranean arc towards Lyon and then along the Rhône valley, where speed regulation measures are in place to make traffic more fluid. traffic.” More than 850 km of traffic jams and slowdowns were recorded at midday at the national level.
Southeast and South axis
The roads will remain loaded on the A7 and the A9 until midnight, Vinci Autoroutes alert.
On the South-East axis, at 5 p.m., there were around a hundred kilometers of traffic jams between Valence and Orange on the A7, with a travel time between Orange and the south of Lyon estimated at 4 hours instead of 1 hour 40 minutes in normal times .
At 5 p.m., south of Narbonne on the A9, there were about fifty kilometers of slowdowns, with a travel time of 2 hours and 10 minutes from the Spanish border instead of the usual 45 minutes. Still on the A9, traffic was difficult between Montpellier and Nîmes.
On the A61, at 5 p.m., traffic was extremely dense towards the South-West between Narbonne and Toulouse, in particular at the level of Carcassonne and Castelnaudary. It took 2h40 to get from Narbonne to Castelnaudary instead of the usual 1h10.
In the south-north direction, at midday, traffic had been extremely dense around the agglomeration of Lyon. It was then necessary, according to Alexis Assael, “between 3h30 and 4h to travel between Orange and the south of Lyon” against 1h40 usual.
West and Normandy
At 4 p.m., there were around fifty kilometers of traffic jams on the A11 at Maine-et-Loire, around Angers, and on the outskirts of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) on the A83 and the N165. The junction between the A81 and the A11 at Le Mans (Sarthe) and towards Paris was particularly busy.
In Normandy, at 4 p.m., nearly 60 kilometers of traffic jams were observed in Calvados on the A13, near Caen, and towards Ile-de-France.
At midday, Vinci Autoroute had identified around 15 km of slowdowns on the RN165 near Lorient, nearly 10 km at Vannes. Slowdowns were also observed around the agglomeration of Saint-Brieuc. The Rennes ring road recorded several kilometers of traffic jams from Lorient or Brest and towards Paris.
South-West axis
On the South-West axis, at 5 p.m., the A10 was particularly busy with nearly 70 kilometers of slowdowns between the south of Deux-Sèvres, on the approach to Niort, and in Vienne, at Poitiers, with more than 11 km of traffic jams in the south-north direction. At 5:00 p.m., Vinci Autoroutes indicated a time of 3:10 to reach Bordeaux and Poitiers against 2:10 usually, and 4:30 of journey between Poitiers and the toll of Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, against 2:30 in normal time.
Traffic was very heavy at Orleans, where the A71 joins the A10. There was a traffic jam of 8 km on the A71 and 16 km on the A10.
#Traffic at 3:00 p.m. ⏱️ Your journey times on @A10Traffic, @A62Traffic, @A63Traffic. #TravelWell #A10 pic.twitter.com/TElCgEYcZl
— A10 motorway (@A10Trafic) May 29, 2022
South of Bordeaux, at 5 p.m., traffic was still very heavy on the A63 in the south-north direction. North of Bordeaux, it was in both directions between Lormont and Saint-André-de-Cubzac. Already at midday, on the A63, the journey time was 2h50 instead of 2h00 from the Spanish border to Bordeaux. On the A10, it took 3h30 instead of 2h10 between Bordeaux and Poitiers. It took 3h50 between Poitiers and the Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines toll instead of 2h30.
Ile-de-France
In the Paris region, traffic was busy at 4 p.m., especially on the A86 with already about twenty kilometers of traffic jams. In Ile-de-France, the situation should become seriously complicated from 7 p.m. and the motorways, in particular the A7, will remain busy until midnight.