The traffic was loaded Saturday on the roads of France during a day classified black in the direction of departures for the big cross-race between Juillettistes and August, with a peak cumulative jams of 720 kilometers "in line with forecasts" at 12:10, according to Bison Futé.
"The situation is in line with expectations with early departures that began very early in the morning from 4:00, and traffic difficulties on all routes of the country," said the organization in a statement.
Difficulties affected the mid-day "especially the Rhone Valley (A6-A7, A43, A48, A42), the Mediterranean arc (A8, A9), the A61 between Narbonne and Toulouse, the A10 between Bordeaux and Tour, and the Great West (A11, A87, A13 including) ", according to the release.
A peak "less strong than last year"
"The peak is less strong than last year" and is "rather average", according to a spokesman for Bison Futé, while 903 kilometers of traffic jams were recorded on August 4, 2018 - the all-time record of 1,340 kilometers of traffic jams had been reached on May 29th during the Ascension Bridge. Traffic was dense between Paris and the Mediterranean, where several difficult points were reported on the A6 and A7 in particular, in both directions. According to Vinci-Autoroutes, at 13:00, it took 3:30 instead of 1:35 normally between Lyon south and Orange, then another 2h25 to reach Narbonne against 1:45 usually.
Traffic on the A7 was "still very strong in the direction of departures" in the middle of the day and was to remain dense "until late afternoon," said Morgane Sauzay, spokesman for Vinci Autoroutes. Traffic in the direction of returns has peaked around noon and "will be dense until 18-19H00", according to the same source. Some 200 kilometers of slowdowns had been recorded on the A7 around noon in both directions of traffic.