Prepaid Calling Cards

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France Calling Cards, France Phone Cards

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Calling France

France Dialing Instructions

Follow the easy dialing instructions below to use your prepaid phone card:
1. Dial the Access Number
2. Enter your PIN Number (only if you don't have any registered numbers)
3. Enter the number you wish to dial:
- For Domestic Calls: Dial 1 + area code + phone number
- For France Calls: Dial 011 + 33 + city code + phone number

For example, if you are buying a prepaid calling card to Paris here is how your dialing sequence will look:

011 + 33 (country code for France) + 1 (area/city code for Paris) + phone number

City Name
 Calling Code Calling Plan Rate
Aix-En-Provence calling code: 442 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Biarritz calling code: 559 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Bordeaux calling code: 556 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Cannes calling code: 493 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Cherbourg calling code: 233 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Corsica calling code: 495 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Grenoble calling code: 476 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Le Havre calling code: 235 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Lille calling code: 320 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Lourdes calling code: 562 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Lyon calling code: 472 - 478 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Marseille calling code: 491 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Montpellier calling code: 467 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Nantes calling code: 240 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Nice calling code: 493 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Paris calling code: 1 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Reims calling code: 326 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Rouen calling code: 235 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
St. Etienne calling code: 477 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
St. Tropez calling code: 494 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Strasbourg calling code: 388 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Toulon calling code: 494 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Toulouse calling code: 561 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Tours calling code: 247 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min
Vichy calling code: 470 calling plan rate: 1.4¢/min


The telephone system

Before 1998, the state-owned operator, France Telecom, had a monopoly on telecommunications in France. Now, the telecoms sector has been opened up to competition and other companies can offer telephone subscriptions and phone card from france.

Telephone numbers

French telephone numbers consist of ten digits. The first two digits indicate one of the five broad geographical areas:
01 for Paris and l'Ile-de-France,
02 for the north west,
03 for the north east,
04 for the south east and Corsica,
05 for the south west.

To call France from another country, you need to dial the international code (usually 00), followed by the country code for France (33), then the phone number without the initial zero. To make an international call from France, dial 00, followed by the country code, the area code (minus the first zero) and the telephone number of the person you are trying to reach.

Public telephones

There are pay-phones in most public places: post offices, railway stations, metro stations, shopping arcades and the street. Most public telephones are card-operated. You can buy phone cards from post offices, tobacconists, railway stations and Paris metro stations. There are two sizes: 50-unit cards for around EUR 6 and 120-unit cards for around EUR 15. You can also use most credit cards to call from public telephones. The cost of the call is debited automatically from your bank account.

Mobile phones

Mobile phones (also known as cellular phones) are definitely worthwhile if you are not staying long in one place and do not wish to have a telephone connected. There several mobile telephony companies in France. Subscription fees and call charges vary considerably from one operator to another. Before buying a mobile phone and taking out a subscription, you should ask yourself the following questions: How long will I need a mobile phone? From which region in France will I be using my mobile phone? Do you need a mobile mainly for making or receiving calls? Will my conversations be long or short?

The answer to these questions is important because the different operators do not have the same geographical coverage. Most subscriptions are for a year and, unless you give sufficient prior notice that you wish to terminate the contract, are often renewed automatically.

Mobile phones and courtesy

It costs considerably more to call a mobile phone than it does to call a fixed telephone (EUR 0.22 to 0.25 a minute). It is therefore courteous to inform the people who call you that they are calling a mobile phone (although they can usually tell because French mobile phone numbers all begin with 06). In certain places (conference rooms, cinemas, restaurants, churches, etc.), there are signs asking mobile phone users to put their phones on stand-by so as not to disturb others.

Bringing your mobile phone to France

The French operators have agreements with operators in many other countries allowing cellular phones to be used outside the original country of subscription. These agreements are conditioned by certain technological restrictions. If you wish to bring a mobile phone to France, you should first make sure that your mobile company has a partnership agreement with one of the three French operators. If it has, then your mobile phone will work on the French partner operator's network. Note that you can use our France calling card and our prepaid phone card France to call whatever you whant.

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