Firstly, there are two bits of vocabulary that are used all over the place and you’re expected to know what they mean:
Carte Grise – Certificate of Ownership
Carte Verte – Certificate of Insurance
I may have missed something, but nearly all cars seem to be sold be at garages – there are few private sales. This may be because the paperwork for transferring ownership of a car seems to be more complicated than in the UK. You have to log on to a system which requires a French social security number – something you’re unlikely to have if you’ve just arrived here and are working in Switzerland.
There are some specific car-based websites, but like many things in France, the best place too look seems to be https://www.leboncoin.fr/ which looks suspiciously like gumtree in the UK – I imagine it’s owned by the same people.
So – Find a car, agree the purchase and send the money to the dealer. Note that second-hand cars are generally more expensive than the UK. We considered importing out UK car, or some people buy from Germany or Spain (at least then you’d have left-hand drive) but my research suggests that it’s unlikely to be worth the hassle.
Buy insurance – https://www.lesfurets.com/assurance-auto is the equivalent of a UK comparison website one whose English name I have forgotten. It worked out that directassurance.com was cheapest for us – I remember that we had to speak to them on the phone quite a bit in French, which my wife didn’t enjoy! They really want a “Relevé d’assurance auto” – a document from your previous insurer which lists your history of car insurance, even if you’re not trying to get any no-claims bonus. An obvious challenge, as this doesn’t exist in the UK – I managed to get my UK insurer to write a specific letter and email it to me – eventually this worked, but I had to translate parts over the phone and it had to have the current date on it – very complex!
A final complication of the process was that in order to “sign” the contract online, you need to receive a code to your mobile phone… which must be a French number. We didn’t have one (and in fact we still use our UK contracts because it’s free to call family!) so had to get our hands on a pay as you go SIM from the supermarket. We still use this as our French number, when one is necessary.
When you have completed the insurance ordeal, take a copy of your temporary insurance certificate to the garage, along with proof of address (ours accepted a receipt from AirBnB – I feel that we got lucky here!) to the garage, which will charge you to transfer ownership. The garage we bought from tried to charge us 500€ for “frais et plaques”. I pointed out that the official government fee was more like 250€, so convinced him to charge me just this – I don’t think new number plates are worth the other 250!
You can work out how much it should cost here: https://www.service-public.fr/simulateur/calcul/cout-certificat-immatriculation#main
Side note: French number plates have a small number indicating a department (county) – this used to be the department that you live in, but now it can be anything, so it seems largely irrelevant.
Your Carte Grise will arrive in the post, you then need to send a scan of that to your insurance company to validate the insurance, then and only then, will they send you your Carte Verte, which includes a small square portion which you should display in the windscreen of your car. This is simple enough, unless you were living in an AirBnB like us, in which case you can’t receive post very easily in France! More on that in the accommodation section!