19 October 2021 | Transport
The first French motorway
The A13 wass the first French motorway. It all started in 1927 with the launch of studies aimed at creating the “highway to the west”. The idea was to link the capital to Normandy, at a time when commercial aviation was in its infancy and when Cherbourg (Manche) and Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) constituted a stopover on the route of transatlantic liners. The first section was completed in 1941. The free motorway network was extended until it became chargeable on July 9, 1960.
On July 1, 1961, the first toll motorway was inaugurated in France, it is the Estérel-Côte d'Azur motorway.
It connected Puget-sur-Argens, in the Var to Mandelieu, in the Alpes-Maritimes. It was 63 kilometers long and to take it you had to pay 250 old francs or 3.99 euros.
