The toll sticker in France was expected to cost €500 per year regardless of the number of kilometeres travelled and would have applied to the whole road network, regional and national.  

The sticker was supposed to replace the revenue expected from the eco tax, and subsequently estimated to raise €95m each year from foreign hauliers. However, Alain Vidal said the government was faced with the issue of Eurovignette which prohibits the imposition of cumulative tolls and vignettes for a single stretch of road section. Removing all other tolls in France would have been impossible. Great Britain was able to establish a vignette system for trucks in 2014, but unlike France, the toll network was much smaller. 

The abandonment of the project will result in an increase of 4 cents per litre on diesel. However, this will only raise around €25m instead of the expected €95m.  

Organisation des Transporteurs Routiers Européens (ORTE), which had backed the vignette idea as ‘simple and equitable’, responded to Mr Vidal’s announcement as “inglorious”. 

Photo: No vignetter for trucks ove 7.5 tonnes using French roads.