French Address Autocomplete: setup and help

• Address entry. Suggestions in the street field of the customer account and native checkout, including guests.
• Filled together. Street, postcode and city from the address the customer selects.
• French coverage. Mainland France, Corsica and the overseas departments covered by the national address database.
• Country matching. Suggestions for the selected country, with ordinary entry elsewhere.
• Everyday use. A list that follows the theme, works on phones and accepts keyboard selection.
• Merchant control. No service account to open, with separate switches for account and checkout forms.

• Suggest addresses while the customer types: the overall switch for suggestions.
• On the address form in the customer account: enables suggestions there when the overall switch is on.
• On the checkout address forms: enables suggestions in native checkout, including guests and separate invoice addresses.

All switches are on after installation. To enable account suggestions only, keep the overall and account switches on and turn checkout off. Turning the overall switch off stops suggestions in both locations.

The same page explains coverage, manual entry, privacy, the data licence and the Content Security Policy requirement. An integrity check warns when none of the covered countries is active in the shop. Activate the destinations you actually serve in the shop’s country settings.

The module does not offer a custom country list or a switch to extend BAN coverage. Routing follows the selected address country and the fixed coverage described below. The settings select forms, rather than changing the countries the service supplies.

Start with the customer account

Keep account suggestions and the overall switch on; turn checkout suggestions off. Try a French address in the account form, then turn checkout suggestions on when you want them there too. Check a guest address and a separate billing address as well as a logged-in checkout.

Allow the IGN connection

If your shop sends a Content Security Policy, add the IGN origin to its existing connect-src directive:

connect-src https://data.geopf.fr;

This example names the origin needed for suggestions. Retain the other sources already required by your shop; this line is not a complete replacement policy.

Keep delivery details

Enter an apartment or floor in the second address line, then choose a street suggestion. The street, postcode and city fill together while the second line remains as entered. Search by street name without a number to try street-level results, then add the number yourself. Check numbers with suffixes such as “12 bis” manually as well.

These examples use the settings and ordinary address fields. They do not require an extra field, a service account or a change to the checkout layout.

Requirements

• General compatibility: PS 1.6 – 9.x. The module declares an exact minimum of PrestaShop 1.6.1.0.
• PHP 7.1 or later.
• Native address forms and a Bootstrap 3, 4 or 5 theme for the supported dropdown presentation.
• An active covered country in the shop for testing.

No external account, API key or subscription is needed. Opening an empty form does not itself request addresses; suggestions depend on the selected country and the street text.

The screenshots illustrate the account form, a selected result, an overseas result, an uncovered country, phone use and the settings. The checkout checks above still matter because the account and checkout switches are independent.

Typing and selection

Suggestions begin after 3 characters and a pause of 300 ms, with up to 5 results displayed. These are built-in operating values, not controls on the settings page.

The street, postcode and city are filled together in that address form. The selected country stays as it is. The second address line, customer name, company and telephone are left alone, so an apartment, floor or entrance detail already entered does not disappear when the customer chooses a street.

A search starting with a house number shows numbered addresses only. A street name without a number produces street suggestions, and the customer adds the number afterwards. Numbers with suffixes such as “bis” also need the customer to complete the number. The result helps fill the form; it is not a check that the final delivery address is correct.

For example, 10 rue de rivoli starts with a number, so only numbered results are shown. Searching for a street without the number follows the street-result path. An empty list is not an address validation failure: the customer keeps typing or completes the form manually.

Country routing

The module covers mainland France with Corsica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte. Suggestions follow the country selected in the address form. A customer entering an address in Martinique is not offered a mainland street, and selecting a result never changes the country.

Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin keep manual entry because BAN does not provide full numbered addresses there for this module. Customers still use the ordinary form. Coverage is tied to the address country, so a French-language storefront alone does not turn suggestions on for an address elsewhere.

An address in Germany or another country outside this coverage uses the form as usual. This module makes no address search and sends no typed text to IGN for it. Customers select their own country, and an address suggestion never replaces that selection with France.

Manual entry remains available in covered countries too. Customers choose a suggestion or keep typing their own address. If IGN does not answer, a short message explains that suggestions are unavailable and the form remains usable. Saving is not conditional on finding the address in the list, and the module does not validate the address when the form is submitted.

Keyboard, screen readers and phones

Suggestions appear below the street field using the dropdown presentation of the shop’s theme. Customers tap a result on a phone. With a keyboard, the arrow keys move through results and Enter selects the highlighted address. Escape or Tab closes the list without selecting anything.

A quiet status message announces the number of results to screen readers. The list also names its source, the Base Adresse Nationale supplied by IGN. Customers stay in the existing address form, in their account or the native checkout, including guest checkout and a separate billing address. There is no map or location permission to deal with.

The list uses Bootstrap 3, 4 or 5 dropdown markup, including classic and default-bootstrap themes. For assistive technology the input has combobox semantics and a polite live status announcement. Moving through the list does not itself select an address; Enter selects the highlighted result.

Form scope

The module serves the customer account and the native checkout address forms. Checkout includes logged-in customers, guests and a separate invoice address. On PrestaShop 1.6 it also handles the one-page checkout invoice block. The form switches decide whether suggestions are enabled for the corresponding location.

Requests, attribution and privacy

Requests go straight from the visitor’s browser to https://data.geopf.fr. IGN receives the typed street text and the visitor’s IP address. This module sends none of the other form fields, and neither stores these searches nor proxies them through the shop server.

The selected result fills the form. Saving the address afterwards remains PrestaShop’s normal address-saving operation. “No searches stored” does not mean that the customer’s saved address disappears or that PrestaShop stops keeping it.

BAN data uses the Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. Attribution appears beneath the suggestions. IGN applies a fair-use limit of 50 requests per second per visitor IP. A service failure leaves manual entry available; it does not add an address-validation requirement.

Alongside what3words Integration

The free what3words Integration module supplies a separate field for a precise delivery point. Both modules use the same shared suggestion list, so the street and what3words fields follow the same theme presentation and selection behaviour. Each module keeps its own job and setup.

• Entry assistance, not validation. There is no address check on form submission. Selecting a real address does not establish that it is the customer’s intended destination or guarantee delivery.
• Fixed coverage. Countries outside the list receive no suggestions. Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin remain manual because full numbered BAN addresses are unavailable there.
• House numbers. Street-only searches need a number afterwards. Suffixes such as “bis” need the customer to complete the number.
• Preserved fields. The country, second address line, name, company and telephone remain untouched.
• No maps or geolocation. The module stores no coordinates and does not use the visitor’s position.
• External availability. Suggestions depend on IGN answering and the browser being allowed to connect. The form remains usable when that fails.
• Checkout Revolution today. Its own address step uses Google suggestions; this module stays out of it and continues on the native account address form.

A third-party checkout’s custom address step is not automatically covered by the native-form scope above. The theme presentation described here relies on the theme’s Bootstrap dropdowns. There is no promise that every custom address form is supported.

• No list: check the overall switch and the switch for the form being tested.
• Wrong test country: choose one of the covered countries and ensure it is active in the shop.
• Too little text: enter at least 3 characters in the street and pause. An empty field does not run a search.
• No numbered match: a search starting with a number expects numbered addresses. Continue typing or fill the address yourself if no result matches.
• Connection blocked: if you use a Content Security Policy, allow https://data.geopf.fr in connect-src.
• Checkout Revolution: inspect its own address settings; this module does not manage that address step.
• Service unavailable: follow the message under the field and use manual entry.

Shared mypresta diagnostics are off by default. Their technical events never record the text the customer typed or the address. They are not a record of visitor address searches.