VALENCE, January 26, 2012 (AFP) - A 10-year-old French boy was apprehended by police on Thursday after taking his father's car and trying to drive it to school when he missed the bus.

The boy, who brought along a nine-year-old friend who also missed the bus, managed to make it more than two kilometres (more than a mile) in his father's Renault Megane before crashing into a roadside pylon, police in the southeastern town of Valence said.

"I had my seatbelt on," the boy pleaded to police when they arrived at the scene.

Neither of the boys was injured during the crash.

Police said the boy could face charges of driving without a licence and damaging public property, but that prosecutors would decide whether to press ahead with the case.