I didn't find anything about it in the forum, and I think this "news" will lead to some changes, as some french cars will have to be modified, like the habits of some contributors⁽¹⁾

As written in an article of L'Argus(fr) (a french magazine specialized in secondhand cars, founded in 1927):
"Le décret n° 2000-576, publié au Journal officiel du 29 juin 2000, a supprimé du vocabulaire automobile le terme « millésime de l'année-modèle », autorisant ainsi l'adoption d'une classification des voitures en année calendaire - couvrant donc la période allant du 1er janvier au 31 décembre."
(The decree n° 2000-576, as published in the Journal Officiel of june 29. 2000, made the commercial version of the word « model year » disappear from automotive vocabulary, thus authorizing the identification of cars with the calendar year, from January 1. to December 31.")⁽²⁾

In practice(fr), that means that cars sold made in France:
- before July 2000 stay with the old model year system (from July 1 to June 30);
- between July 1, 2000 and December 31, 2000 are 2001 "new non model year" (transitional period);
- from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001 are "2001 cars" too.
And so on, from January 1 to December 31 of each year.

So we can proudly say that we had a "year and a half model year" in 2001 in France. You know how much we are attached to our French cultural exceptions
________

(1) I was sure that the model year still started in july until a very recent discussion with dsl and atom. So I count myself among these contributors with bad habits

(2)Traduttore, traditore...