Boondock Puffins

French Bureaucracy: Double the faff of a Catch 22

How come to get a French phone number, you already need a French phone number, and to do anything else like set up an Amazon account you need a French phone number?!

The craziness of this situation drove us nuts for a few days but we are slowly sorting ways forward. Most answers lie in driving anywhere between 45 minutes to two hours down the mountain to a bigger settlement with a shop that will have a real life human to help us.

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, it turns out that to set up a French phone contract you need to go to the phone shop and prove your residency in France and take an ID, which Eliza thought was excessive but Tom is certain is the same everywhere.

With banks, there is a skill in not only finding a bank but also considering how to sort out exchange rates. Also for us living up in the mountains, there seems to be only one cash withdrawal place that charges you €5 anytime you want to get money out.

Advice from the (marginally more experienced) blind to the (newbie) blind:

For anyone moving to France, to set things up to begin with, it is easiest to get a French pay as you go phone and then sort out a contract online using your pay as you go number. For banking, Nickel is good for a new sort of banking to start off with, as setting up a proper account with an old school style bank requires a lot of paperwork which you may not be able to face (or have the bits of other paperwork to hand) when you start off. There is also Wise, which is particularly good for exchanging money between currencies. We were also recommended a service called Revolut which seems to be rather like Monzo but we haven’t looked into this yet.

Anyone else have good advice for dealing with the intricacies of setting up life in France?