Mail
French post offices ( bureaux de poste or PTT s) - look for bright yellow La Poste signs - are generally open 9am to 7pm Monday to Friday, and 9am to noon on Saturday. However, don't depend on these hours: in smaller towns and villages offices may close earlier and for lunch, while in Paris the main post office is open 24 hours.

You can receive mail at the central post offices of most towns. It should be addressed (preferably with the surname first and in capitals) " Poste Restante , Poste Centrale", followed by the name of the town and its postcode. To collect your mail you need a passport or other convincing ID and there may be a charge of around a couple of francs. You should ask for all your names to be checked, as filing systems are not brilliant.

For sending letters, remember that you can buy stamps ( timbres ) with less queuing from tabacs . Standard letters (20g or less) and postcards within France and to European Union countries cost 3F/¬0.46, to North America 4.40F/¬0.67 and to Australia and New Zealand 5.20F/¬0.79. Inside many post offices you will find a row of yellow-coloured guichet automatiques - automatic ticket machines with instructions available in English with which you can weigh packages and buy the appropriate stamps; sticky labels and tape are also dispensed. A machine can change notes into change, so there is no need to queue for counter service. If you're sending parcels abroad, you can try to check prices on the guichet if available or in various leaflets available: small post offices don't often send foreign mail and may need reminding, for example, of the reductions for printed papers and books.

You can also use Minitel at post offices, change money, make photocopies, send faxes and make phone calls. To post your letter on the street, look for the bright yellow postboxes .

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 télécarte ) 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 cafés, 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 ( États-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 Téléphone (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 téléphoner 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 ( Relève d'Identité 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 télécopie , 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.

Email and the internet
Email is the cheapest and most hassle-free way of staying in touch with home while in France. Practically every reasonable-sized town has a cyber café or connection point of some sort, and in less populated areas, the need is being filled by post offices, many of which now have rather expensive public Internet terminals, which are operated with a prepaid card (50F/¬7.63 for the first hour). In addition France Telecom has street-side Internet kiosks in major cities. Prices range from 15F/¬2.29 to 60F/¬9.15 per hour, so it can be worth shopping around. It's easy to open a free email account to use while you're away with Hotmail or Yahoo: head for www.hotmail.com or www.yahoo.com to find out how.

The existence of Minitel and the relatively low level of personal computer ownership in France contributed to the rather slow adoption of the Internet here, but in recent years the situation has changed and France as a nation has come fully on-line. Information about practically every aspect of French culture and travel can now be picked up on the Internet: government agencies are now on-line, including even some of the smallest local tourist offices; in the cultural sphere even the most obscure and esoteric associations have discovered the importance of getting their message out over the Web; and the hotel and restaurant businesses have come to realize that the Net is a key to foreign markets. On the down side, many or most of these pages do not have English-language versions, although they are gradually coming to be seen as indispensible in all but the most locally focused sites. As anywhere on the Net, persistent combing of links pages and use of search engines (among the best are www.google.com and www.dogpile.com , and the French www.enfin.com ) will almost certainly get you the information you are looking for.

Newspapers and magazines
English-language newspapers , such as the European , the Washington Post, New York Times and the International Herald Tribune , are on sale the same day in Paris, and in most large cities and resorts the day after publication. Of the French daily papers , Le Monde is the most intellectual; it is widely respected, but somewhat austere, making no concessions to such frivolities as photographs. Libération , founded by Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1960s, is moderately left-wing, independent and more colloquial, with good, if choosy, coverage, while rigorous left-wing criticism of the French government comes from L'Humanité , the Communist Party paper. The other nationals are all firmly right-wing in their politics: Le Figaro is the most respected. The top-selling national is L'Équipe , which is dedicated to sports coverage, while Paris-Turf focuses on horse-racing. The widest circulations are enjoyed by the regional dailies . The most important of these is the Rennes-based Ouest-France - though for travellers, this, like the rest of the regionals, is mainly of interest for its listings.

Weeklies of the Newsweek/Time model include the wide-ranging and socialist-inclined Le Nouvel Observateur , its right-wing counterpoint L'Express and the boringly centrist L'Évenement de Jeudi and the newcomer with a bite, Marianne . The best investigative journalism is to be found in the weekly satirical paper Le Canard Enchainé. Charlie Hebdo is a sort of Private Eye or Spy Magazine equivalent. There is also Paris-Match for gossip about stars and the royal families. Monthlies include the young and trendy - and cheap - Nova , which has excellent listings of cultural events, and Actue! , which is good for current events. There are, of course, the French versions of Vogue, Elle (weekly) and Marie-Claire , and the relentlessly urban Biba , for women's fashion and lifestyle.

Moral censorship of the press is rare. On the newsstands you'll find pornography of every shade, as well as covers featuring drugs, sex, blasphemy and bizarre forms of grossness alongside knitting patterns and DIY. You'll also find French comics ( bandes dessinées ), which often indulge such adult interests: wildly and wonderfully illustrated, they are considered to be quite an artform and whole museums are devoted to them.

Some of the huge numbers of homeless people in France ( les sans-logement ) make a bit of money by selling magazines on the streets which combine culture, humour and self-help with social and political issues. Costing 10F/¬1.53, the most well-known of these is L'Itinérant .

TV and radio
French TV has six channels: three public (France 2, Arte/La Cinquième and FR3); one subscription (Canal Plus - with some unencrypted programmes); and two commercial open broadcasts (TF1 and M6). In addition there are the cable networks, which include France Infos, CNN, the BBC World Service, BBC Prime, MTV, Planète, which specializes in documentaries, Paris Première (lots of French-dubbed films), and Canal Jimmy ( Friends and the like in French). There are two music channels: the American MTV and the French-run MCM, where you can get a real education on French rap.

Arte/La Cinquième is a joint Franco-German cultural venture that transmits simultaneously in French and German: offerings include highbrow programmes, daily documentaries, art criticism, serious French and German movies and complete operas. During the day (6am-7pm), La Cinquième uses the frequency to broadcast educational programmes. Canal Plus is the main movie channel (and funder of the French film industry), with repeats of foreign films usually shown at least once in the original language. FR3 screens a fair selection of serious movies, with its Cinéma de Minuit slot late on Sunday nights good for foreign, undubbed films. The main French news broadcasts are at 8.30pm on Arte and at 8pm on F2 and TF1.

If you've got a radio , you can tune into English-language news on the BBC World Service on 648kHz AM or 198kHz long wave from midnight to 5am (and Radio 4 during the day). The Voice of America transmits on 90.5, 98.8 and 102.4 FM. If you're in the Paris area, you can listen to the news in English on Radio France International (RFI) for an hour (3-4pm) on 738 kHz AM. For radio news in French , there's the state-run France Inter (87.8 FM), Europe 1 (104.7 FM) or round-the-clock news on France Infos (105.5 FM).