LAST year speed cameras generated 4.6 million fines, government figures show.

A total of 1,740 cameras on French roads resulted in 11 million alerts being sent from the machines to a national processing centre, of which 4.6 million resulted in fines sent out, or an average of just over seven a day per camera.

The Interior Ministry figures follow the government’s announcement of a plan to remove warning signs for cameras, likely to result in an increased number of fines.

The internet site of news magazine Le Point revealed the cameras which generated the most fines, which included the one on the A31 at Maxéville in Meurthe-et-Moselle (an average 464 per day) and the one on the A8 at Adrets-de-l’Esterel in the Var (338).

According to Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet the removal of signs is going to be done “very quickly, in the next days and weeks”.

France is also to ban the use of speed camera warning devices which alert drivers to cameras coming up using a combination of GPS and software programmed with the locations of cameras. Detectors which physically detect the presence of cameras are already illegal in France. Some critics have pointed out this would logically include many sat-nav systems, and mobile phones which are programed with camera locations, and have accused the government of not thinking through the consequences.

France is about average for the EU in terms of road deaths, having dropped below 4,000 a year for the first time in 2010. However since the start of the year an increase has been noted.

Speeding fines (at the lowered rate for prompt payment) start at €45 for going up to 20kph over the limit in a zone with a limit of more than 50kph, or €90 in zones with a lower limit (plus removal of one licence point).

They go up to €1,500, six points and a three-year ban for going 50kph over the limit or €3,750 and three months' prison for a repeat offence (it is planned the tougher penalties will soon apply from the first offence).

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