THE FRENCH: CHAMPIONS OF UNPAID FINES | M6 | 66 minutes

In France, nearly one in three people doesn’t pay their traffic fines — and it’s not simply a case of administrative phobia… it has practically become a national sport.

Bent license plates, plates hidden behind plastic bags, stickers, or even a tarp covering a scooter — clever drivers like Roméo never run out of tricks to avoid penalties.

There are the small-time schemes… and then there are the “experts” operating in the shadows.
On Snapchat or Telegram, dozens of accounts promise to “make a ticket disappear” in just a few minutes — for as little as €50.

Meanwhile, the State is watching unpaid fines pile up, creating a major loss of revenue for some municipalities.
In Paris, for instance, one in five drivers doesn’t pay  for parking, thanks to a completely legal loophole that they technically shouldn’t benefit from.

Debt collection centers are overwhelmed, the amounts owed are skyrocketing, fraudsters keep inventing new tricks — and sometimes honest drivers end up paying the price.

Take Mathys, a young driver who regularly uses his mother Jessica’s car.
Yet according to the authorities, Mathys is also the registered owner of two other vehicles: a Renault Clio II and a Peugeot 308 — cars he has never bought or even driven.
In barely a month, he received around twenty fines.

This new scam is wreaking havoc.

An investigation into the French drivers who manage to stay under the radar.