It is actually cheaper to BUY a car than to rent one. I just found a tremendous resource at this website: http://www.lacentrale.fr. Last year we had problems because we had a Visa Electron card AND cold hard cash. The latter is apparently no longer interesting for the large auto rental companies at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
Get this, dear friends. There is a tremendous niche in renting out cars. If you live in France you could literally start up with ten to fifteen cars for less than 10.000$. You could simply run a parallel rental system and people would be fiercely interested. Even miniature cars in small class A were interesting for some who had no reservations. We had reserved using the international Avis website but were still denied a vehicle even though I have an international business license from my career as a cab driver.
Now that I discovered this website from our lovely friends in Tours I must admit that we are greatly tempted to buy a car rather than rent one. We could give it to our friends and still save a fortune compared with leasing.
Just imagine a Volvo 740 from 1987 priced at only 800€ – roughly 1100$. It even looks good:
And for those with less kids, imagine this Rover 111 from 1997 which has only run 96,000 km (just under 60,000 miles for 200€:
A luxury vehicle such as the Peugeot 605 (model 92) for 400€ etc. So why rent when it’s cheaper to buy? Vehicle insurance and other stuff will arrive on this blog shortly. I’m checking up on what terms are available for foreigners/tourists. 
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for writing. I will certainly be coming back to your posts.
I am glad you appreciated it. Keep your comments coming – even if you’re missing something.
I want to do my very best to fulfill your wishes on this blog.