On recent M3 ED we arrived in Paris just in time for the Saturday evening rush hour. Only a few blocks from our destingation, my daughter's home, we hit the mother-of-all-traffic-jambs.
In a construction zone and at a 5 way intersection, a bad accident a couple of blocks ahead had snarled everything.

In the middle of all this two gendarmes waved us over to the side, and while one walked around looking at the car, the other curtly demmanded my son's license and our papers.
He then said, "Oh, you are not German, you are American?" Then after a much more friendly exchange, he chastized us for having unnecessary lights on. Seems there is a rule against it in town, "because it bothers the people in the buildings above." [My son had turned them on thinking to be a bit more visible to the motorbikes which were buzzing between the jammed cars, often missing us by no more than an inch or so.]

In any case the sun was still shining, so I don't think the lights were a big thing. I believe they wanted look at the car and maybe hassle a couple of German tourists, then when they realized we were American, they had to say something so they used the lights. Anyway they were smiling when we moved on.