From June 1, 1.8 million French people will have to take steps to change their address.
In France, today, around 20,000 municipalities still have at least one road that is not numbered. In the countryside, the name of certain hamlets often serves as the address for an entire group of dwellings. A situation that the government could not tolerate and which it saw fit to take control of with a new law. Called 3DS (differentiation, decentralization, deconcentration and simplification) and voted in February 2022, it requires naming the “voices and localities, including private roads open to traffic” and numbering each of the buildings. Previously, this rule only concerned municipalities with more than 2000 inhabitants.
The objective is clear: facilitate access for emergency services, network technicians or even delivery people to areas where they sometimes waste time. As specified by the government website, “many public and private services need to know the precise geolocation of addresses”. Some residents of the municipalities concerned also say they are attracted by the measure, which should prevent them from the many problems they encounter today. “We weren’t able to receive all our packages. The fact that the town hall is changing the addresses I don’t think is bad,” said a resident of Haux, for example, to BFMTV. Another resident of the town testified about a tax increase due to the lack of a precise address.
The new numbering concerns 1.8 million French people, who will therefore, in concrete terms, have to change their address. There is no question of moving or eviction here, it is the streets in which they live which will experience change. Municipalities will have to fill out a national database of addresses in order to be able to geolocate each home. The names will be decided by the Municipal Council. They are required to find a name and number for everyone before June 1st.
What does this imply for the French people concerned? If they do not have a say in the choice of the name of their road, their hamlet, or the number of their accommodation, they will be held to other obligations. As when moving, they will have to change their address everywhere, particularly on their identity papers. You will also need to notify their employer to have the new address on the pay slips, but also the bank, EDF, telephone or internet operators, etc.
The numbers assigned may also surprise you. Certain isolated houses could be numbered according to the distance in meters which separates them from the start of the road and therefore reach figures well beyond a hundred. However, plates will not be compulsory.
“In order to reduce the cost and time of implementation by municipalities of complete addressing of their territory, including in the most rural areas, the need to install number plates and routes is left to the “assessment of the municipalities which are best able to judge their necessity”, specified the government.