Intercity buses are a way to get around in France.
Understand
The market for intercity bus travel in France was liberalized in 2015 as a result of the "loi Macron" ("Macron's law"), introduced by Emmanuel Macron, who was France's economy minister at the time. (He is now the country's president.) Since liberalization the market has grown quickly: 6 million people travelled by coach in France in 2016.
Prices
In general, companies try to undercut competing train services in terms of price as they cannot hope to compete on comfort or speed.
Companies
- Ouibus is a subsidiary of SNCF (the national state owned railway) and covers most of France and a few routes to Barcelona, London, Belgium, the Netherlands and Northern Italy. They do not, however, serve Germany
- FlixBus, which started in Germany, still focuses on domestic and international routes from Germany, but have quickly expanded in France since establishing a presence there.
Booking websites
The site SoBus sells bus tickets for all the bus companies listed above, and can be used to compare prices.
Some electronic tickets must be printed on the automatic terminals on the stations. You must bring your reservation code. You can also buy your tickets at the stations at the automatic terminals until 5 minutes before departure.