Eco-tax was being developed to charge all national and foreign vehicles over 3.5t for use of the entirety of the country’s principal highway network currently not tolled, plus a certain number of secondary roads. The French government said, “As soon as trucks start to use smaller roads as a way of avoiding payment of Eco-tax, it is likely that more of the secondary network will be included and tolled,”
This tax issue in France could have meant even more expense for the WTCC teams who are forced to use the French road networks. My blog is all about the logistics of the WTCC teams and it is these sort of taxes that the Truckies and the teams need to be aware of. We already have so many different taxes and tolls to buy as we travel around Europe and this would have been one more. I am glad that the French people have seen sense and stopped this as soon as it was started.
You can read more about the truck taxes here. http://racetruckie.blogspot.com/2012/04/taxtaxand-more-tax.html
The French have a long history of protesting when they do not agree with things. There is a very interesting story concerning Alain Prost, the French Formula 1 driver.
When he won his first championship, in 1985, it was a victory for him, not for France. He
was driving an English-designed car with a German engine and living, self-exiled, in Switzerland.
Prost had left the French national team two years earlier following a bitter dispute with Renault management. He had won nine races for Renault, become the first Frenchman since 1927 to sweep the British Grand Prix, and was within two points of the 1983 championship.
But he was outspoken and knowledgeable and complained of flaws in the car design and team organization. Renault made sure that this was written about in the French press, and in April 1983 outraged workers in Prost's hometown of Saint-Chamond marched on his house and burned his prized white Mercedes. Within days, Prost had packed up his wife, Anne-Marie, and his 3-year-old son, Nicholas, and moved to Switzerland.
SO BE CAREFUL AND DO NOT UPSET THE FRENCH.