The motorway starts at Paris's Porte d'Orléans and Porte d'Italie with two branches, numbered A6a and A6b respectively, that join south of Paris.

The motorway is favoured by holidaymakers[1] as it is the main link to the South of France and the French Riviera.

The A6 motorway used to be prone to severe traffic jams around Fourvière Tunnel near Lyon[2] prior to the opening in 1992 of A46 autoroute and in 2011 of the A432 autoroute which is also called the "Contournement de Lyon" and known as the "Lyon Rocade Est".

A 200-kilometre (120-mile) stretch of the A6 motorway around Mâcon, Chalon-sur-Saône and Montceau-les-Mines, France, is known for the A6 disappearances, a number of mysterious disappearances or other crimes involving women and girls, occurring in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Exits are numbered from north to south.This article about road transport in France is a stub.