FRENCH FORCES BASED IN GERMANY

    Article initially written by Jean Schuliar and completed by Jean-Emmanuel Chevry in 2021

1. French forces in Germany (FFA) had regular military registration, after the TOA (Troupes d'Occupation en Allemagne) period (1945-1949), but on a red background, often with an additional FFA. An E or an S (Services) may precede the serial number, often starting with 998. Since about 2005, the E (Economats) vehicles have a 00-1234 format, either in silver on blue, or white on black background. Such plates have been seen on SFOR vehicles in the former Yugoslavia.

2. Civil vehicules for the french administration in Germany had a CGA prefix from 1945 to 1949 on a black background and then a DO sufix (Domaine Occupation). Plates starting or ending with GMB (Gouvernement militaire de Berlin) on a black background were issued from 1955 to replace the DO plates.

3. Private vehicules of military forces in Berlin had a distinctive FZ (Französische Zone) from 1947 followed with a  4 digit serial number.
The German Forces in France, still have a black background plate with a DF prefix.

Private vehicules for troops located in other regions than Berlin had blue plates, from 1954 to 2017 in which the second digit represents :
1= Baden-Baden, 2=Freiburg, 3=Landau-Pfalz, 4=Trier, 5=Villingen-Constance, 6=former-Tübingen (end in 1977), 7=Reutlingen. In July 1999, most of french troops left Germany, but in several places (1, 4 and 5) Eurocorps french-german troops replaced them and still used these blue plates.  Code 3 reappared in the 2010s.

From december 2016, these blue plates are replaced with white background plates and the F Euroband, starting with RF, followed by 2 letters and 2 to 4 serial digits. Serial 2400 was reached in 2024.Th é letters following RF (no I K O Q U X Y) are generated by an algorithm by the serial number.