British family who dodged paying road tolls for months in France ‘by lifting the barrier at booths’ are caught – and forced to cough up cash

A British family who dodged 3,000 euros in road tolls in France by lifting up the barriers have been caught. 

French police stopped the relatives on Tuesday after they had been travelling freely for months across the country in three separate cars. 

The Brits, who all belonged to the same family, avoided paying the tolls at booths on the motorway by simply lifting the barrier while the other cars drove through. 

The authorities stopped them near to the Swiss border, in Besançon in eastern France. 

They had been alerted by the operators of the A36 autoroute on Saturday to a suspected fraud at a toll booth near the city of Belfort. 

Local police said that at the next toll booth, ‘a person got out of one of the three cars, raised the barrier to let the vehicles through, before getting back in’. 

The British nationals inside the vehicles were stopped by local police, who demanded payment of the toll fares. 

The family had been carrying out the same offence for several months according to local French press. 

The total they owed amounted to 3,000 euros (£2,563). The family paid the full amount the same day. 

It comes after another motorist was caught on the A36 in France following months of toll booth fraud by tailgating the vehicle in front of him. 

The man faced a bill amounting to 9,000 euros (£7,690) after being caught by surveillance cameras. 

Fares at toll booths around France’s huge motorway system rose by around 3 per cent in February 2024, and again by around one per cent each year since then. 

They also replaced physical toll booths and barriers with overhead digital gantries as part of a transition to ‘free-flow’ electronic tolling. 

The A14 switched to this system in June 2024, while the major A13 Paris-Normandy corridor followed with its removal of toll booths by March 2025. 

But the push to a greener system has led to more reports of scammers and people trying to avoid paying altogether. 

Drivers have also complained about the rising cost of using roads to travel across France, as low-emission zones have expanded in recent years to more major cities. 

Over 40 towns and cities are now required to implement low-emission zones, including major urban areas like Bordeaux, Nice and Paris. 

Foreigners could also be hit with a hefty fine of £640 if they fail to display ‘Crit’Air’ stickers declaring the emissions of their cars, one of many new restrictions placed on vehicles in France.