Phone, Fax, and Minitel
You can make domestic and international phone calls from any telephone box ( cabine ) and can receive calls where there's a blue logo of a ringing bell. A 50-unit (40.60F/?6.19) and 120-unit (97.50F/?14.87) phone card (called a telecarte ) is essential, since coin boxes are being phased out. Phone cards are available from tabacs and newsagents as well as post offices, tourist offices and some train station ticket offices. You can also use credit cards in many call boxes. Coin-only boxes still exist in cafes, bars, hotel foyers and rural areas; they take 50 centimes, 1F, 5F or 10F pieces; put the money in after lifting up the receiver and before dialling. You can keep adding more coins once you are connected. Local calls are costed in France at 0.813F/?0.123 for three minutes (1F/?0.15 minimum); long-distance calls within France cost up to 2.44F/?0.37 for three minutes depending on the distance. Off-peak charges apply on weekdays between 7pm and 8am and after noon on Saturday until 8am Monday. For calls within France - local or long-distance - simply dial all ten digits of the number. Numbers beginning with tel 08.00 are free numbers; those beginning with tel 08.36 are premium-rate (from 2.23F/?0.34 per minute), and those beginning with 06 are mobile and therefore also expensive to call. The major international calling codes are given in the section, "Phone numbers and dialing codes"; remember to omit the initial zero of the local area code from the subscriber's number. Cheap rates operate between 7pm and 8am Monday to Friday, from midnight to 8am and noon to midnight on Saturday, and all day Sunday. From a private phone, a call to the UK ( Royaume-Uni ) will cost between 1.64F/?0.25 and 2.47F/?0.38 per minute, from a public phone 2.17-2.57F/?0.33-0.39; to Ireland 1.95-2.97F/?0.30-0.45 per minute or 2.85-3.52F/?0.45-0.54; to the US ( Etats-Unis ) and Canada 1.95-2.97F/?0.30-0.45 per minute or 2.85-3.52F/?0.45-0.54; to Australia and New Zealand 4.31-6.55F/?0.66-1 per minute or 7.99-10.16F/?1.23-1.55. By far the most convenient way of making international calls is to use a calling card , opening an account before you leave home; calls will be billed monthly to your credit card, to your phone bill if you are already a customer or to your home address. However, the rates per minute of these cards are many times higher than the cost of calling from a public phone in France, with flat rates only. The best value is offered by Interglobe (tel 020/7972 0800; 50p/min to the UK), followed by AT&T (tel 0500/626262; $US1.50/min to the UK), then Cable and Wireless Calling Card (tel 0500/100505; 68p/min to the UK), and Swiftcall Global Card (tel 0800/7691444; 70p/min to the UK). British Telecom's BT Charge Card (tel 0800/345600 or 0800/345144) offers the worst value with calls from France to the UK charged at 90p per minute. But since all of these cards are free to obtain, it's certainly worth getting one at least for emergencies. You dial a free number (make sure you have with you the relevant number for France), your account number and then the number you wish to call. The drawback is that the free number is often engaged and you have to dial a great many digits. If you need to make many foreign calls from France, several companies offer cheap-rated phone cards, such as the bargain-basement store Tati who sell a 50F/?7.62 or 100F/?15.24 Intercall Carte Telephone (tel 08.00.51.79.43) for calling overseas which you can use in a public or private telephone; a 50F/?7.62 card gives you, for example, 15 minutes to Australia, 32 minutes to Canada or the US and 49 minutes to the UK. These rates work out much cheaper than using France Telecom from a public phone. To avoid payment altogether, you can, of course, make a reverse charge or collect call - known in French as telephoner en PCV - by contacting the international operator . You can also do this through the operator in the UK, by dialling the Home Direct number tel 08.00.89.00.33; to get an English-speaking operator for North America, dial 00.00.11. Some British mobile phones , as long as they're digital, will work in France. Getting a mobile phone in France is - in principle - simply a matter of visiting a phone boutique (for instance, a France Telecom store) with identification, proof of address and proof of ability to pay. This involves setting up a French bank account, which will entitle you to the bona fide certificate known as an RIB ( Releve d'Identite Bancaire ); to obtain this you will need to provide a copy of a utility bill with your name on it, not necessarily a problem since banks are prepared to accept foreign utility bills. Faxes can be sent from all main post offices and many photocopy stores: the official French word is telecopie , but people use the word fax. A typical rate for sending a fax within France is 25F/?3.81 for the first and 6F/?0.92 for subsequent pages. Many French phone subscribers have Minitel , a dinosaurial online computer that's been around since the early 1980s, which allows access through the phone lines to directories, databases, chat lines, etc. You will also find it in post offices. Most organizations, from sports federations to government institutions to gay groups, have a code consisting of numbers and letters, which you can call up for information, to leave messages, make reservations, etc. You dial the number on the phone, wait for a fax-type tone, then type the letters on the keyboard, and finally press Connexion Fin (the same key ends the connection). If you're at all computer-literate and can understand basic keyboard terms in French ( retour - return, envoi - enter, etc), you shouldn't find them hard to use. Be warned that most services cost more than phone rates. Directory enquiries (tel 12) are free.
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