French roads

So I have spent a lot of time over the past week looking at French road names on my satnav. I have come to the conclusion that there are only 6 names that they give to roads here.
1. Every main road through a town or village is called Jean-Juares.
2. Every town, no matter how small, will have at least 13 roads named after Victor Hugo.
3. About 40% of roads in France are named Marechal xxx, where xxx is a typical and very long French name like Marechal de Tartuffe aux Vendres des Liognines.
4. A huge number of roads are named after Charles de Gaulle, whoever he was.
5. Many roads are named after what I can only assume are important dates from French history. You get plenty of “6st de Juin, 1944” or “22de Septembre 1493” or similar
6. All the rest are agglomerations of the above, normally a de Gaulle followed by a date, and maybe with another Marechal de Somebody tacked on for good measure. You get names like “Boulevard de Generalle Charles de Gaulle aux Siegny et 14 Novembre 1820, around 9;30 in the evening”, or “Marechal Folies de Andripones et Chirac du Symfonie 1812 Ouverture la Fins de temps”.
Anyway, they keep me amused while I am traversing the countryside. Mon Dieu!

2 thoughts on “French roads”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *