Yup I sleep in forests using a hammock and I make sure I'm not in a private forest or a Natural Park, as the fines can be pretty bad. Natural Parks have so many rules that you can't even lift a pebble or pick a flower.

Now while France frowns upon wild campers with their tents, very few people here think of hammocking or bushcrafting. So they will go after obvious wild campers with their bright tents but I have not yet met any park rangers looking in the bush for hanging campers.

One thing that is very strict and can land you in trouble very quick is making fires. In regions like the Var (department 83) fires are simply not allowed and should anyone see a column of smoke in the summer you are quickly going to end up with an helicopter hovering and the authorities on your back. So you better be good at camouflage or do that on a lousy winter day. They ban any fire whatsoever in wild areas.

In my region (department 06, Alpes Maritimes) there is the legal notion of "cooking fire" which is only forbidden anywhere during Red Season (July 1st - 30th of September) and forbidden when winds go above 20 km/h. The regional authorities have also divided the map into 3 zones of 3 categories where the lower mountain ranges are strictly protected (massif du Tanneron) and the higher ones at 1000m and above are sort of free zones. This isn't Canada for sure :-(

So I normally do my commando style nights out at places above 900m to be safe. But it can get cold at night.

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