Visiting or living in France – how to stay in touch

Whether you are living in France permanently or are just visiting the country on holiday, you will want to stay in touch with what is happening in the world, with your family and friends back home, and with local events. Fortunately, because owning a property in France has become a popular move for many Brits, there are now many English language sources of information, and most French homes can access modern communication services.

Installing a landline telephone in your French home

France Telecom is the name of the outfit you need to contact if your phone line has not yet been installed in your new French home. Installation costs a flat fee of €47 plus an hourly charge for the engineer. The company has an English-speaking department on 0800 36 47 75 (from France) or 00 33 1 55 78 60 56 (from the UK). To get connected you will need to take proof of the address of your property in France and your identity to your local France Telecom shop. Monthly line rental costs €14.50 and a number of call packages are available from France Telecom and other low-cost national and international call providers.

Peak rates are from Monday to Friday from 8am to 7pm. Reduced rates apply at all other times and on bank holidays.

The international dialling code for France is +33.

Living in France – mobile phones

If you wish to continue using your existing mobile phone when staying in your property in France, you need to make sure your mobile company has a partnership agreement with one of the three French operators: Orange, SFR or Bouygues.

If it does not, you will need to subscribe to one of these three networks. Subscription fees and call charges vary considerably depending on your chosen package and tariff. Most people choose a monthly payment package (forfait), typically costing €30 without international calls. Pay-as-you-go (known as sans abonnement) is also available at a cost of about €20 for 90 minutes.

Living in France – public telephone services

Phone boxes can be found in most post offices, railway stations, metro stations and shopping centres and on the street. Most are operated by credit cards or special telephone cards. The latter can be bought from post offices, tabacs and rail and tube stations.

Living in France – postal services

Most people living in France soon discover that the French postal service is not very different to the British one. Similar services – special edition stamps, redirection, holding mail while you are away, registered post, recorded delivery, daily deliveries – are offered. For owners of property in France, perhaps the most obvious differences are the lack of letter boxes in front doors, the clusters of post boxes in the lobbies of apartment blocks, and the need to have the surname of everyone living in your French home written on your box.

Internet access in your French home

If you are going to be living in France on a permanent basis, you will find your UK desktop pc, laptop or mac will work as well in your French home as in your British one, but you will need to set up a French ISP account.

For low-use dial up connections to French homes, many ISPs offer access without a set up or monthly charge. A cheap local access number costs about €0.02/min and is billed directly to your France Telecom account. For moderate to unlimited use, fixed fee accounts are also available to dial up users.

Broadband, however, is now available to 97% of property in France at a typical cost of about €25 per month. Among the suppliers are Orange, a subsidiary of France Telecom, Free, Neuf Telecom, Alice and Teleconnect. The latter have designed an ADSL account specifically for English expats living in France.

For those living in a French home without internet access, most towns have cyber cafes. The hourly charge is usually €4-6. French domain names end in .fr.

Living in France – French newspapers

Keeping up to date with world affairs and local news is not difficult for Brits living in France, thanks to ready availability of English newspapers in most cities. For those that speak the language, the widest circulation national French newspapers are Le Monde and Le Figaro. There are also a host of regional newspapers. Some of the latter have English versions available online.

The Connexion is a monthly newspaper for English speaking expatriates available on newsstands (€2.40) or by annual subscription posted direct to your French home (€26).

Living in France – French radio

French airwaves are packed with radio stations. To find those you can tune into from your property in France, check out www.annuradio.fr and type in the name of your nearest town. There are also many English-language radio stations in the south, but only one, ParisLive FM (963 AM) serving the capital. Road traffic reports are broadcast in English on 107.7 FM every ten minutes while Radio France International transmits several hours a day of English language programmes via the Internet.

Living in France – Television

All property in France with a standard aerial should be able to pick up the four publicly owned television channels: France 2 France 3, France 4, France 5 and the international TV5. In addition, private channels such as TF1 and M6 plus Canal Plus (although the latter’s prime time programmes require a decoder) should be readily available to most French homes. Depending on where you are staying or living in France, you should also find at least one regional tv station. A TV licence is required (see Cost of Living in France) by any property in France with a tv, whether or not it is used.

A good proportion of urban property in France is already connected to cable. Prices vary but service to a typical French home costs less than €30 a month after an initial installation fee of about €190 (see www.noos.fr). If cable tv is not an option and you cannot consider living in France without your favourite English language programmes, a satellite dish may solve your predicament. A 60cm dish should be adequate for most property in France except in the far south where an 80cm dish may needed. Installation may cost as much as € 620 including dish, parts and the services of a technicien. The two satellite tv providers are CanalSatellite and TPS