Your temporary DL is legal and valid. Why don't you have it laminated yourself? Easy and quick to do. Would look nicer and more official anyway.

Let's go back to the IDP

An IDP is a formal attestation,in several languages, by an internationally accredited body, that your driving licence is valid at least up to a certain date and genuinely issued by a recognised authority (the American Automobile Association carries more clout in most countries than the State of Utah). It also provides a translation of other information, such as what category of vehicle the holder is authorised to drive.

By itself, it's valueless. But if you've got a foreign licence that looks weird or says something unhelpful, like "temporary", it's a terrific way of demonstrating that weird licence is valid.

An IDP can ONLY be issued:
- on sight of a local licence that's valid (I THINK it has to be valid for a year after the IDP is issued)
- in the country where the underlying licence was issued.

So, whatever anyone tells you in America, getting an IDP AS WELL AS your licence is highly advisable insurance.

No-one can guarantee 100% that a clerk in a hire office wil accept an odd-looking licence. You've got no way of knowing what strange instructions they might have been given lately, and ultimately all hire companies are more concerned with ensuring cars are fully insured (which they're not if hired out to someone without a valid licence) than with silly girlie nonsense about customer relations.

French drivers licenses are paper, so a paper license will certainly not shock the car rental people or the police.

Nobody will want or ask to see an IDP at any time in France. The French only want to see the real license. When I worked for Avis in France, we were told never to accept an IDP but to demand the license.

Does your temporary license at least have a photo on it?

Cowboy is wrong however about European licences. Maybe in Germany they do not (yet) expire but in other European countries they do - we renew ours every 10 years, and have a standard EU CC sized plastic licence.
The expiry date is checked when hiring a car.

France is also switching from the pink paper to the cc type licence, as are all EU countries. All EU countries must have switched by 2013, and licence will be valid for only 10 years (5 years in some cases).

The rules for driving in France, and the rest of the EU as a visitor are that, for a stay of 3 months or less, you can drive as long as your licence is valid and current.

In some countries they do expire, in other countries they don't (yet).

That's been my point: There is no "one style" a DL must look like. The staff at rental car agencies is used to handle all types of "non standard" drivers licenses.

In Germany, NEW licenses will have a limited validity of 15 years from 2013 on. But the DLs issued until then will remain valid until 2033. So the multitude of shapes and color will remain present for quite a while.

It must be valid for the type of vehicle you wish to rent, and - if applicable - still valid. Both is the case with the OP's temporary replacement. The *only* issue might be convince the staff at the rental car agency that this is the case.

If the staff in Nice do not seem to understand the issue or mistake the temp license for something it isn't, it might be an idea to address this problem to the rental car company's French HQ. And hopefully receive an e-mail from XY customer service France that the temp license is okay.

Not sure if this will help, but I would also go to a Hetz office in your town and see how they handle this "new" license, and ask THEM to write a letter saying that it IS valid in their state and rental office.

Go armed with as many additional papers as possible.

My French licence does not have an expiration date. I hope that it will change soon, but it is one of those very touchy points with voters.

me again.
we just returned from the DMV. i guess with some new laws as of the first of this year, at least in Utah, it takes 2-3 weeks to produce a license b/c it has to go through the Dept of Homeland Security....or something like that.
ANWAY, the desk girl was kind enough to call her supervisor and see what they could do. so they have 'expedited' our request and our licenses should be produced today (instead of 2 weeks from today) and in the mail tomorrow....that leaves 5 days for them to get here via mail so, fingers crossed....

we were also were able to keep our expired licenses, our new temp license does have a photo on it and we plan on having those pieces of paper laminated IF our new licenses do not arrive on time. my husband - who is renting the car - also picked up an IDL this morning, not sure if it will help but at this point, it won't hurt either.

we do still have a tentative train itinerary in the works but i am hopeful that we can rent a car as planned.....

THANK YOU all so much for your ideas, responses, creative suggestions and just votes of confidence that our temp license is actually valid. thank you also for the train information and travel suggestions were our car trip not come together.

A temp license with a photo would have been fine. No need to laminate. You can throw the IDP in the garbage.

great news.

I would take the IDP with me regardless of whether you have your formal driver's license by the time you leave. I've never rented a car abroad, but from what I've read, these come in very handy if you have to present it to someone (police in particular) who does not speak English as has the information in multiple languages (I assume including French).