UKC

Wondering if anyone can shed any light on the situation with public footpaths/rights of way in France....

We live in La Correze and explore our local area a lot on mountain bikes, and walking. We have the blue "Cartes de randonnee" for the areas local to us, and they all have loads of tracks marked through the fields and woodlands.

At times, we come across places where the path/track ends at a fence. Some areas have signs saying "private property" or similar, but it's fairly rare.

After a "debate" on a track in the woods with a rather unpleasant woman about whether we should have been there, I'm interested in finding out more. The blue maps don't differentiate the paths as either public or private, so if there are no signs or obvious fencing, how is one supposed to know where the public rights of way are? Are there maps that have the rights of way marked?

In reply to 1234None:

I have no idea about the situation in France, but possibly public rights of way are a British concept? Across Scandinavia you have the everyman's right which allows you to go pretty much where ever you want short of gardens and such. Whilst in other countries people are just banned from even simply crossing areas of private land. I'll be interested to read an explanation of the situation in France. Good luck!

In reply to 1234None:

I've lived in France for many years & I'm sure the concept of 'rights of way' (as in English law) doesn't exist. I've found that anything marked on the IGN 1:25 000 maps in red (GR & PR) is OK but any other paths are potentially private. Never had any problems in the mountains but its a different story in the lowlands.

But would be interested to hear from someone who knows about French law

In reply to Doug:

Thanks - as you say - no issues in the mountains. but it is particularly interesting here in the Correze region. There are some huge areas of forest - all owned by someone and perhaps it is just the case that some landowners are happy for people to explore, while others are not.

We had thought about this issue before and I had remarked to my wife (who is French) how strange I found it that there were no footpaths or rights of way marked on the blue walking maps. Our encounter today in the woods got us discussing this again, so thought I'd see if anyone here can offer advice or knowledge. We chatted to our neighbours and even they aren't totally clear where people have the right to wander or not...but they did say to ignore the woman we bumped in to today, as apparently she's known locally for stuff like this.

In reply to Doug:

I walk the Somme battlefields a lot and have just returned from a two day trip. We use the IGN 1:25,000 and follow paths and tracks marked on these. Funnily enough we had exactly this conversation whilst walking a track between Montauban and Logueval. This was bought about by our seeing signs on some adjoining woodland which read Private. We came to the conclusion that we must be within our rights to walk these tracks otherwise who are the "Private" signs on adjoining land aimed at?

Not a definitive answer to the OP I'm afraid but logical perhaps? Also some of these tracks give access to CWGC Cemeteries and memorials

In all the years that I have been walking the battlefields I've very rarely met anyone else on these tracks once out of the villages, apart from the very occasional farmer. They have always been very friendly and polite, and I have never been asked to leave.

In reply to 1234None:

I can’t contribute to your question I’m afraid. I have however been walking in England with people from various parts of Europe and North America and they were all surprised by the prevalence of lowland public rights of day. One of those things we never stop to appreciate.

In reply to wintertree:


Indeed...

In reply to Trangia:


That has been our experience too, until today. We were out wandering with our daughter, doing no harm and playing around in the forest, and a woman appeared with her dog and gave us a bit of a telling off for being on "private land". We were on a track and there were no signs, and it wasn't fenced off. I tried to draw this to her attention politely but gave up after a few seconds when I saw that she just wasn't going to back off. Apparently, she is a bit of a pain locally, so I am not especially worried about this incident, but it did prompt some thinking about where we actually do have a legal right to wander and where we do not.

In reply to 1234None:

The following document seems to give a pretty good overview of the situation in France

http://creps971.free.fr/am/cours/reglementation/ffrp_droitChemins.pdf

It seems that rights of way don't exist - see page 14.

In reply to EwanR:

Thanks - interesting!

In reply to 1234None:

I just go for it. However, if there's loads of old blokes in orange baseball caps with guns hanging around I go somewhere else.

W

In reply to Bogwalloper:



https://brothawolf.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/trumpgreat.jpg

Seconded...