Appreciate the info Erich. So, while the French Embassy and St Martin Tourist Office recommends you have an IDL, your experience plus comments from other posters as well as rental car agents all agree the IDL is not needed. Since the IDL is basically a translation of your drivers license in several languages, I suspect if the Gendamerie know some English, they're satisfied with just seeing your US drivers license. I'm confident most if not all of the Dutch police are fluent in English, so they can read the US drivers license just fine.
Liked your web page too...good info on SXM. Thanks!
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