travel to france with photo driving licence?

vibe666

do I NEED my passport to travel to france, or can I just use my driving licence like from ireland to the uk?

i have a big trip planned, but i just found out that my passport has expired.

i just sent everything off (uk passport, british embassy etc.) but it's going to be tight getting it back in time for the trip.

so i guess the question is, does anyone know if i really need it to get to france and back, or will my photo id drivers licence be enough?

thanks in advance.

microgirl

vibe666 wrote:

do I NEED my passport to travel to france, or can I just use my driving licence like from ireland to the uk?

...snip...

so i guess the question is, does anyone know if i really need it to get to france and back, or will my photo id drivers licence be enough?

thanks in advance.

Nope, you need your passport to get to France, at least afaik. Unless things have changed recently. Ireland and the UK have a common travel agreement, but not the rest of the EU. At least that's my understanding. I could be wrong, but I certainly wouldn't want to take the risk.

Before anyone says that the EU is a common travel area as well and we're all EU citizens etc etc, the way it was explained to me before is; sure, we're all EU citizens and thus don't need our passports to travel within the EU. But the only way you can prove you're an EU citizen is by showing them your passport

Best way to find this out for definite though is probably to contact the various embassies/Dept of Foreign Affairs/airlines/whoever.

BuffyBot

AFAIK you will need your passport.

cailinoBAC

Ireland and the UK aren't part of the Schengen agreement. Ireland isn't part of it because the UK isn't part of it and if we joined and they didn't, we'd have to show passports to get to Northern Ireland. I don't think the new members are part of Schengen yet either but if not then it will happen in phases. But at the same time, most other countries have separate id cards that people carry at all times. Some people have never got passports because they had these id cards and that was enough to travel over a lot of Europe. I don't think driving licences count as id cards. And as most people need to take a plane to get to the continent, you do need to show the correct id, whereas once you're there you can go almost anywhere without having to show anything, even if technically you should have it.
So if we did join Schengen it would probably mean people could travel here from the continent with their id cards, but we would have to still show our passports.

vibe666

okay, thanks anyway guys. it's pretty much what i thought, but someone had told me that i 'might' get away with it.

jhegarty

vibe666 wrote:

okay, thanks anyway guys. it's pretty much what i thought, but someone had told me that i 'might' get away with it.

not a chance..... sorry :mad: