Troisième week-end pare-choc contre pare-choc sur les routes de France: what does this mean?

Bumper against bumper: this was the head lines on the magazine L'Express yesterday and below, finds the beginning of the article:

"Lyon - "Bouché de chez bouché !": après les deux grands chassés-croisés de l'été, le trafic était encore dense samedi, classé "rouge", avec 430 kilomètres de bouchons à 11H00 sur les routes de France, le pic de trafic du week-end du 15 août étant attendu à la mi-journée" 

 

Bouché de chez bouché, this expression where the same adjective is repeated twice with de chez in the middle has become popular in the last 10 to 15 years, it is only to emphasize the adjective. In this case, it means that the roads are really, really blocked up. 

You  can say cher de chez cher, for instance, meaning that it is really expensive.

Les chassés-croisés is used when one group of holiday makers is coming back from holiday while another one is going on holiday, so they pass each other on the roads.

Classé rouge is a classification explaining that the traffic is really heavy. We have classé vert, classé orange, classé rouge et classé noir. Classé vert means that the traffic is light and classé noir indicates that it is absolutely terrible!!!

430 kilomètres de bouchons: 430 km of traffic jams!

Le pic de trafic is the worst of the traffic, which was expected at lunchtime.

So what do you need to remember from all that?...... If you are going on holiday in France in the Summer, avoid the end and beginning of July and August and also the weekends in the middle of each of these months!! Or else be prepared to sit in queues......

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