French administration and police plates, before 2009

 

System used from 1992 to 2009

These plates were used to register a vehicle held by an administration. They had the following format : 00A-0000A (and 000D-0000A for overseas departements)

The first two or three characters indicated the department to which belongs the vehicle (they also may be 2A or 2B for Corsica, or 971 to 976 for overseas departments), the following letter indicated the zone in which the vehicle may usually circulate :

Then follow a serial number and a serial letter from 1001A up to 9999Z.

As Paris (department 75) has the most administrative representations, it has the most advanced registration. In July 1999, it reached 1001F and 3000F in 2000, then 8000F in August 2003 and 4000G in 2007.

Departments with a large population such as 13, 69 or 59 do not exceed the letter C.

The serial numbers does not depend on the zone letter (D, R, N or E), i.e. 75N-6679D can be followed by 75R-6680D.

This system started on 01/01/1992. After having been in white on black background, registration are compulsary issued in black on yellow  or white (rear) or white background (front) since 01/01/1993. All former D registrations have been reissued.


Police

Police license plates are organized around 8 "chefs-lieux" (11 up to 2003), in charge of regions. And that chef-lieu department number is always followed with a N. For instance 78N for vehicles located in departements : 77, 78, 91and 95.

 


History

The sytem used until December 31st, 1991 was national, without department or zone code and has started in 1948. It had the format 00000 D and then 00000 DA.

The series used were D, DB, DC, DA, DE, DF, DG, DH, DJ in France, DO was used in occupied Germany from 1949 (after CGA was used from 1945 to 1948)  and DZ in the overseas departements :

 

Historical sheet of the France official series from 1948 to 1991

 


Peculiarities

From April, 26th 1950 to 1963, Algeria used the AL series with digits between 10000 and 39999 for cars and between 40000 and 99999 for the other vehicles. The following numbers are known : 10061 AL, 10730 AL, 42857 AL and 45278 AL.

 

In 1960, the "Prefecture de Police" in Paris also issued white on black plates starting with PP, such as PP 063 779. Police motorcycle may have been registered with a serial number only, also on a black background.

 

The overseas departments use now the same official series as in the mother country. Between 1952 and 1992, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon had used the format D 000 SPM from D 1 SPM to D 351 SPM. The Réunion, and certainly the other overseas departments, used the format 00000 DZ.

 

The overseas territories used different systems. If Wallis-et-Futuna register its official vehicles in the normal series, the New-Caledonia use black on dark blue license plates with also a normal serial number. The French Polynesia use a different system of which the format is E 0000 (white on black) for the State ("État" in French) vehicles and D 0000 (yellow on black) for the Territory vehicles ("Domaines" in French).

 

Historical sheet of the Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon official series from 1952 to 1991

 

 

Jean-Emmanuel Chevry, Michel Raulhet, Yann Scardis, Bruno Vernhes, Jean-François Żuraw and the SFPI