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France braces for severe road congestion on August 1, 2026
The government traffic agency Bison Futé warned that Saturday 1 August 2026 will be a “black” day for departures across the whole of France, marking it as the most difficult travel day of the summer. The agency also flagged heavy traffic on 31 July (black in the southwest, red elsewhere), and red‑coded Saturdays 8 August, 15 August and other dates in August.
On the third weekend of July, live monitoring reported almost 48 km of jams on the A7 motorway between Châteauneuf‑sur‑Isère and Savasse, with travel times nearly doubled. The congestion was attributed to the high volume of holiday‑bound motorists.
Bison Futé’s alerts aim to help travelers plan routes and departure times to avoid the worst bottlenecks during the peak holiday period.