Every year, it's the same catchphrase.

The French return from vacation at the end of August a few days before the start of the school year for a large number of children.

And once again, the traffic is very heavy.

The proof is this Saturday, August 21, on the roads, mainly in the sense of returning from vacation with nearly 840 km of traffic jams accumulated for this day classified as black in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and on the Mediterranean arc.

The peak of traffic was reached at midday with 838 kilometers of disturbances having mainly affected the A7 motorway in the South-North direction, according to Bison Futé.

On the latter, the difficulties were particularly concentrated in the Drôme with a maximum of 131.7 km of cumulative slowdowns.

Between Orange and Lyon, the journey time was extended by at least one hour as well as in the opposite direction, according to Vinci Autoroutes, manager of the A7.

At the same time, there were other difficulties on the Mediterranean rim between Narbonne and Orange via the A9 with 02:10 travel in both directions instead of 01:40.

On the A61, we had to count about thirty additional minutes to reach Toulouse from the Aude, according to Vinci Autoroutes.

On the other hand, Vinci did not note any major difficulties on the A8 where traffic was slowed down by ten to forty minutes instead of the usual 02:20.

At midday, on the Atlantic side, from the Spanish border, it took at least two more hours on the A63 to reach Bordeaux then a little over an hour to reach Poitiers by the A10 from the capital Girondine, according to the same source.

In the Vienne Bison Futé recorded shortly after 11:30 am around sixty km of traffic jams.

On the other hand, no difficulty was observed at midday, still on the A10, from the Poitou region to Paris, according to Vinci Autoroutes.

By early afternoon, around 1:40 p.m., the total slowdown had contracted to 514 km.

The weekend of August 15 had already seen a strong influx on the roads with nearly 1,000 kilometers of traffic jams in the direction of the returns.

Sunday, the traffic is classified orange in the direction of the returns throughout France, with additional traffic difficulties in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and in the south-east, classified red.

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