Grey areas
Check these before you go.
The official source settles most of this. These are the parts it does not, so treat them as open and check locally.
- Parc amazonien de Guyane: ask the park before you plan a night in the core. Access and activities there need the director's authorization on a form, and the park's regulation page states no bivouac rule either way.
- Parc national de la Guadeloupe: plan a dusk to dawn bivouac and confirm the hours with the park rather than working to a clock. The park's own page confirms that camping is not permitted in the core and that bivouac is allowed only more than one hour's walk from a core boundary or a road access, and it states no start and end time. The dusk to dawn pattern is the national parks portal's description.
- Parc national de La Reunion: pitch before sunset and take the tent or hammock down in the morning, which is what the park's own page requires. That is the sun, not a clock, and it is a different shape of rule from the mainland parks' fixed hours. The national parks portal describes a sunset to 08:00 window, but the park's own page gives no 08:00 and no one night limit, so work to the light and be packed up early.
- Parc national du Mercantour: check the park's own site for the outcome of its public consultation on reforming the bivouac regulation before you go. The conditions described here come from the park's own FAQ, and a reform would move them.
- Adhesion areas, meaning the zones around each park core rather than the core itself: check the commune, not the park. Park bivouac regulations bite in the core. Outside it you are back under the general camping rules and whatever the commune has posted at the mairie and at the access points.
- Fines: read the posted notice or ask the park for the figure that applies where you are. They vary by park and by offense, so a number from one park tells you nothing about the next.
If you take one thing from this page, take the vocabulary. French rules turn on the difference between bivouac and camping, and an English speaker who treats them as the same word will break the rules while believing they are following them.
What bivouac means
The national parks portal defines it by two things: the stay lasts a single night, and the setup is basic. Its words are that bivouac differs from camping sauvage “par le fait que l’action se déroule sur une seule nuit et dans une installation sommaire”. The same page says camping sauvage is strictly prohibited in park cores, because it does much more damage to the environment, by day as well as by night.
The parks that allow bivouac add their own conditions on top: a tent you cannot stand up in, no fire, all your waste carried out, and a new site every night. The French text on each park’s site is the authority, so read it for the park you are actually going to.
Bivouac is a walker’s permission, not a vehicle’s
This is the part that matters most to anyone reading this site from a vehicle. Bivouac is a halt on a journey made on foot. It is not a permission to sleep in a van.
Several parks say this in their own words rather than leaving it to inference. Mercantour states that you cannot sleep in a camping-car or a roof tent in the core of the park even if you move the vehicle every evening. The Pyrenees prohibit camping in a vehicle, including a camping-car, throughout the core zone, and say the prohibition covers parking areas too. Cevennes prohibits sleeping in a vehicle or a habitable trailer in the core. Forets prohibits sleeping in a vehicle in the core outside enclosed private property.
If you are in a vehicle, none of the bivouac rules below help you, and what you want is an aire. See what an aire is and wild camping versus free camping versus aires.
There is no single national window
The commonly repeated “19:00 to 09:00” is the pattern in four parks, not a national rule, and two parks work off the sun rather than the clock. Assuming one park’s hours apply in another is the second most common mistake after assuming a van counts.
The eleven parks
France has eleven national parks. Here is what each one’s own site says.
| Park | Bivouac | Hours | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanoise | Yes, restricted | 19:00 to 08:00 | Summer only, and only in the immediate vicinity of certain refuges while they are staffed. You must reserve. Lightweight tents only, no standing height. Elsewhere in the core, all bivouac is prohibited with or without a tent. |
| Ecrins | Yes | 19:00 to 09:00 | More than one hour’s walk from the core boundary, and more than one hour’s walk from parking areas and roads inside the core. One night per site. No fires, no excessive noise, carry out all waste. Prohibited at fragile sites signed on the ground, and within 500m of the shores of Lauvitel and Muzelle outside the marked bivouac zones. |
| Mercantour | Yes | 19:00 to 09:00 | More than one hour’s walk from the core boundary or a road access. Move site every day. Tent must not allow standing height. Camping-cars, vans and roof tents prohibited. In the Merveilles and Fontanalba engraving zones, only the designated areas by the refuges. |
| Pyrenees | Yes | 19:00 to 09:00 | More than one hour’s walk from the core boundary or any motorized access. Tent pitched after 19:00 and struck before 09:00. Camping in a vehicle, including a camping-car, is prohibited throughout the core, parking areas included. Dogs are not admitted to the core. |
| Cevennes | Yes | 19:00 to 09:00 | Only within 50m either side of marked GR and GRP routes, on foot, with a tent that does not allow standing height or with no tent. Certain sensitive sections are excluded. Sleeping in a vehicle or habitable trailer is prohibited in the core. |
| Port-Cros and Porquerolles | No | n/a | The park’s own core zone regulation states “pas de camping ni de bivouac”. Visit for the day or book accommodation on the islands. |
| Calanques | No | n/a | Prohibited all year, on land and at sea, by any means: under the stars, in a tent, in a vehicle, in a habitable trailer or any other mobile shelter. The ban also covers the roadsides through the core. |
| Forets | Yes | 1 hour before sunset to 1 hour after sunrise | Near paths and trails, with a small tent. Camping proper is not allowed in the core except on enclosed or private property, and sleeping in a vehicle in the core is prohibited outside enclosed private property. Portable stoves permitted subject to prefectural fire orders. |
| Guadeloupe | Yes | Dusk to dawn, per the portal | Camping is not permitted in the core. Bivouac is allowed only more than one hour’s walk from a core boundary or a road access. The park’s own page sets no clock hours, so plan dusk to dawn and confirm with the park. |
| La Reunion | Yes | Sun based | Allowed in the core except in the Mare Longue forest, at Grand Bassin, in the Riviere des Remparts, and on the cliffs of the Piton des Neiges and the Grand Benare. Tents and hammocks must be pitched before sunset and taken down in the morning. Work to the light rather than a clock, and be packed up early. |
| Guyane (Parc amazonien) | Ask the park | Ask the park | Access to and activities in the core zone require authorization from the park director, applied for on a form. The park’s own core zone page states no bivouac rule either way, so settle the authorization question before you travel. |
Two parks, then, ban bivouac in their cores outright: Port-Cros and Porquerolles, and the Calanques. Guyane is neither a ban nor a permission. Write to the park director’s office before you plan a night there.
Outside the parks: camping sauvage
Away from the parks, there is no single French law that bans sleeping outdoors. There is a general permission with a stack of exceptions on top of it, and the exceptions are where people get caught.
Article R111-32 of the Code de l’urbanisme sets the baseline: camping is practiced freely, off the public highway, with the agreement of whoever has the use of the land. Article R111-33 then prohibits isolated camping on the seashore and in listed and classified sites, in the surroundings of protected heritage sites, and near drinking water sources, unless a dérogation has been granted. Coastal and protected land is therefore restricted by default rather than by a local decision.
Article R111-34 is the one to remember. It lets the plan local d’urbanisme prohibit camping outside designated grounds in certain zones, and it lets the maire prohibit it by arrêté municipal where the practice would harm public health, safety or tranquility, natural or urban landscapes, monumental views, natural environments, or farming and forestry. Then it adds the sentence that should govern how you actually behave:
Ces interdictions ne sont opposables que si elles ont été portées à la connaissance du public par affichage en mairie et par apposition de panneaux aux points d’accès habituels aux zones visées par ces interdictions.
The prohibitions only bite if they have been made public by a notice at the mairie and by signs at the usual access points. The sign at the site is not decoration and it is not advice. In this article it is the mechanism that makes the rule enforceable against you, which is exactly why the sign, and not this page, is the thing you follow.
The préfet has a separate power that matters in summer. Article L131-6 of the Code forestier lets the state representative in the department prohibit, in a defined perimeter and in case of exceptional fire risk, both the bringing and use of anything that could start a fire and the circulation and parking of any vehicle. In a dry August in the south that can close a whole massif to you at short notice.
If you are in a vehicle
Then almost none of the above is your route, and what you want is an aire: a stopover a commune has designated for motorhomes. It is the legal, boring, easy answer, and it is why this site maps them. Start at the France country page.