France is to issue "virtual licences" for British and other foreign motorists who will be banned from driving in the country if they lose them and have their cars confiscated if they flout the ban, reports The Telegraph.
It will also create a black list of foreign drivers who have failed to pay traffic fines.
The crackdown on foreign drivers was one of a battery of measures the French government unveiled on Friday in a bid to reverse a worrying rise in road accidents in France.
Accidents increased last year for the first time in 12 years and rocketed by almost 20 per cent in the month of July compared to 2014.
“The roads of France cannot be a cemetery,” said Manuel Valls, the prime minister. He also announced the country would introduce 10,000 “fake” speed cameras to scare motorists into slowing down and experiment with drones to keep an aerial lookout for dangerous drivers.
As part of its 22-point plan, France will roll out an additional 500 “real” speed traps over the next three years bringing the overall total to 4,700. Private contractors, not the police, will operate mobile radars.
Some 3,384 people died on French roads last year, a 3.5 per cent rise, suggesting the government faces an uphill struggle sticking to its stated aim of bringing the annual death toll down to 2,000 by 2020.
Foreigners only account for 6.7 per cent of the drivers on French roads but were involved in 12.5 per cent of traffic offences last year – some 3.13 million cases.
Mr Valls said the “virtual driving licence” for foreigners will function “exactly like a French licence” but did not go into more detail.