PARIS - A 'VISIBLY drunk' motorist was caught driving for up to 30 kilometres on the wrong side of the Paris ring-road, French police said on Sunday.

In a 'manifestly inebriated state,' according to police, a 21-year-old male spent the early hours of Sunday in a cell after a preliminary hearing set a court date for May.

The driver's Peugot 206 was spotted by police at 0420 GMT (11.20 am, Singapore time) near Porte de Clichy, one of dozens of gateways into the city served by the ring-road.

The police car was on the inner ring-road, and noticed the driver travelling at roughly the same speed on the outer portion, and thus in the wrong direction.

With police unable to attract his attention, the man turned on to the A1 motorway, heading north, again on the wrong side of the road.

He was finally stopped by traffic cops near the Stade de France stadium north of Paris, which has hosted rugby and football World Cup finals.

He had been heading home in the northwest Val-d'Oise region between Paris and Normandy.

Police said the young man may have left a nightclub in Louveciennes, on the outskirts of the French capital. -- AFP