Eclipsepearl

If you're travelling to France, I just want to warn you about the rental car seats here.

Usually it's not recommended to use car rental seats anywhere but here, the situation is even more dire.

I've checked out a couple of companies (one time popping my head in the room just to check out the seats). Very scary stuff. Kind of dirty, missing parts and who knows how old they were...

My husband's cousin just came to visit and he insisted (despite my warning) on renting the car seats. No way would I have put my child in one of those!

Just to cite some differences; Harnessing past 40lbs is unheard of and babies are turned around forward facing at 9 months of age (regardless of weight). Infant bucket seats only have 3 point harnesses and all convertibles face forward (one claims it can rear-face but a friend tried it and had to take it back to the store since it didn't work). It's hard to find a car with tether anchors and most seats don't have tether hooks and straps. They do have LATCH which is called "Isofix" here. Often they confuse the two though and don't even know what tethers are.

So the whole car safety aspect here is dodgy. You might be wondering about using a foreign car seat here. Well, I do and I'm a French citizen with a French driver's license. In theory, any European seat is legal. I've been through numerous checks and the French police are so glad to see a child strapped in that they have never mentioned the fact that the seat was foreign. I have a Radian, which looks nothing like any seat sold here. I was in a small accident and had to install it in a French police car. They guy was joking about it not "liking" his French car, so he knew... So me, being obviously a resident, doesn't get in trouble for it, you should be fine if you're a tourist...

Be sure not to check it as luggage. Either use it on board or gate-check it. For numerous reasons, including this issue, I suggest you avoid flying Air France.

Hope that helps keep your children safe on your trips to France!