Every year, the roads of France find themselves saturated when people go on vacation. Bison Futé predicts red, and even black, days on several dates from the start of the summer vacation.
Every year, thousands of families ask themselves the same question: when should they go on vacation? To optimize your leave, to avoid crossing paths with other school zones, to pay less… but also to escape traffic jams on the road. As always, the summer period is synonymous with particularly heavy traffic on the main roads, but not all days are equal.
In 2026, as in previous years, weekends will be mostly busy. It is especially on Fridays and Saturdays that you should avoid driving as much as possible, at the risk of encountering a large number of vacationers. Overall, Sundays will be relatively quieter. According to Bison Futé’s official forecast for summer 2026, five days in particular will be the worst of all in the direction of departures.
Friday July 10 and Saturday July 11 will open the ball of traffic jams: the entire territory is classified in red, namely “very difficult traffic”, even “extremely difficult” for certain areas. This will be the case in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region over these two days, but also in the Great West and the North (which includes Brittany, Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val-de-Loire, Normandy and Hauts-de-France) on Saturday.
Friday July 31 will also be classified red throughout France, as well as black in the South-West, that is to say the entire region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and part of Occitanie. But the worst is expected the next day, Saturday 1er August, where the entire territory is classified as black, always in the direction of departures. This is the date to avoid at all costs when taking the vacation route. Finally, traffic also promises to be “extremely difficult” on Saturday August 15 in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (in black) and on this date, the rest of the country will be classified red, just like the way back.
Concretely, all Fridays from July 3 are classified in red in at least part of the country, and in orange (“difficult traffic”) in the rest of the territory in the direction of departures. Until mid-August, traffic will be very slow every Saturday, before becoming slightly more fluid on the last two weekends of the month, when departures are fewer. Furthermore, certain Mondays will be exceptions: on August 3, traffic will be orange throughout the country; on August 10, it will be the turn of the entire northwest part to be in orange; then the entire southeastern part on August 17.
And in terms of returns, the complications will begin on July 3. Fridays and Saturdays in July will almost systematically be classified in orange, while Tuesday July 14 will also be busy for the end of the long national holiday weekend. In August, the situation will become significantly more tense with massive and systematic returns every weekend, mainly saturating the southern half of the country. The peak of these flows will take place during the last half of August: traffic will be very difficult throughout the Assumption weekend, from Friday August 14 to Monday August 17, over almost the entire territory. The same goes for the following three weekends, including Mondays, until the final crossover of the summer, August 31.
- Bison Futé: https://www.bison-fute.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Calendrier_Bison_Fute_2026.pdf
