Allo119.org:
Child abuse: 24-hour free government helpline: 119.
Bientraitance.fr:
Ill-treatment of the elderly, dependent or handicapped: government helpline:
3977 (Monday to Friday 9 AM to 7 PM, cost as a local call).
See the page Crisis - How to Save
Money in France to find out how to obtain cheaper train tickets and other
reductions for families with children.
CAF. Caisse des Allocations
Familiales. The public administration that pays child benefit, housing benefit,
low-income support RSA, and other family related benefits. Vies de famille.
CAF's site with general advice and articles for families.
Mon-enfant. Public site
provided by CAF to inform about and assist with child minding.
Anglobuddy. Site to connect native English speakers in France with French
wanting to practice English. The expat may optionally charge up to €20/hour
for their time. Contact Expats.
Contact other expats worldwide. Search facility per country, year etc. Expat Meetup.
Contact other expats worldwide. Search facility per country etc. Expats Reunite. Find
lost expat contacts online. InterNations.
Global networking site for expats. Linkexpats.
Global networking site for expats. Meetin. Connect with expats
online. Messageparis.org.
Contacts, activities, information & support to pregnant women & families
living in France. Waifs.
Helpline for women and men left alone in France.
Conflict in the Family?
In case of conflict in a family, whether related to divorce, separation or
other problems, the CAF can
help finance some of the cost according to an income dependant tariff.
A2micile.com. Household
assistance, gardening, child minding, senior assistance etc. Acadomia.
Teachers for home school support, languages and more. Adhapservices.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners.
ADHAP is a network of independent, franchised businesses. The network does not
seem to have a quality control in place, as it has been experienced that local
businesses are run by incompetent directors severely underpaying and overworking
staff and
violating a long list of working regulations and breeching employment contracts. Furthermore, network management
does not intervene when informed about malpractices. In troubled local
businesses, this leads to high staff turnover with the risk of reduced service
quality. Agedorservices.
Find providers of personal services. Focus on but not limited to seniors. Aladom.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Aplus-qualite.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Assisteo.
Find providers of baby-sitters, cleaning assistants etc. Caisse d'Epargne.
Find providers of baby-sitters, cleaning assistants etc. CNP.
Find providers of baby-sitters, cleaning assistants etc. Domiserve.
Find baby-sitters and other domestic helpers.
Findatrade.
A system that lets customers search in France, by area, for trades people, post details of jobs/work to be done and rate performance. Fourmi Verte.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. France Domicile.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Genius-Laposte.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Maison et services.
Find cleaning assistants. Matmut
Services à la personne. Find personal services such as senior assistance,
shopping delivery, cleaning, gardening, DIY, IT assistance, baby-sitting,
teaching assistance, accompanied transport. ParticulierEmploi.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Personia.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters, gardeners. Plaisirdaider.
Find providers of personal services, for example hairdressers, language teachers, baby-sitters,
gardeners. Seniorvie. Various types
of assistance for seniors. Service provided by CNP. Tendea.
Baby-sitters, extra teaching, senior assistance, animal sitting. Yoopala. Baby-sitter search.
Insurance and mutuelle disputes, go to the section Insurance.
Which ombudsman? Club
des Mediateurs has a useful list telling you which ombudsman (médiateur)
is competent for which type of complaint. You will notice that there is a gaping
hole when it comes to general consumer complaints. France doesn't have any
consumer ombudsman, contrary to certain other European countries more advanced
in consumer protection.
UFC - Que Choisir.
Leading French consumer association. A note about them: they publish a good
consumer magazine "Que Choisir", and they are active in working for better
consumer rights, attacking corporations in court sometimes. Their local
associations can sometimes assist consumers in individual cases, but the
effectiveness and knowledge of the local associations can be questionable, and
if you dare question what they say because you are better informed then they
are, they can become terribly arrogant and haughty. They are based on voluntary
work, so their motivation for taking time to analyse the law is low, and they
seem not to bother reading up on consumer law changes. It's a bit of a gamble if
they can help in a particular case or not. In a specific case about illegal
direct debit revocation fees, I got the distinct impression that those from the
local UFC association in Avignon who replied had some interest in not bothering
the banks although the association claims to be independent. I have no proof of
this, but when they systematically refuse to talk about the Article in the law
that concerns revocation, one gets suspicious. 60 millions de
consommateurs. INC's consumer magazine. Institut National de la
Consommation (INC). Public consumer association. Adac. Association de
Défense et d'Assistance des Consommateurs de France. Consumer association. Association Léo Lagrange
pour la défense des consommateurs. Consumer association. Anil. Agence Nationale pour
l'Information sur le Logement. Information about property occupation. Adil Paris. Agence
Départementale sur le Logement de Paris. Information about property occupation.
Use the yellow pages at
Pagesjaunes or
118 218 / Le Numéro
to
find ADIL in other départements. Logement.org. Information
regarding property lettings. Afutt. Association
Française des Utilisateurs des Télécommunications. For telecom users. Ciao. Consumer forum. Very
useful to read consumer comments about businesses. Lesarnaques. Consumer
forum for experience of swindle. Raleur. Consumer forum.
Very useful to read consumer comments about businesses. Toluna. Consumer forum.
Very useful to read consumer comments about businesses. Commission de la
Sécurité des Consommateurs. Commission charged with enforcing product
safety. Service Public.
Government site with plenty of practical information. Direction Générale
de la Concurrence,
Consommation et Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF). Government site for competition, consumption and suppression of fraud.
Online form to ask for help with consumer problems.
However, this authority increasing apply a laisser-faire policy of not
intervening regardless of obvious breaches of consumer law for which they are
competent to intervene. France has no general consumer ombudsman, so consumers
should not expect much assistance from the French authorities in cases of breach
of consumer law.
Médiateur
du Ministère de l'Économie, des Finances et de l'Industrie. Mediator for
individuals and business in case of problems with any area under this ministry.
Pacitel. Avoid unsolicited sales phone calls.
Signal Spam. Forward spam to the authorities. Anti spam SMS. How
to report SMS spam and fraud, such as bogus messages telling you to call a
premium rate number such as 0899xxxxxx: Spam/fraud
SMS: 1. forward to 33700 (billed as a standard SMS), 2. 33700
confirms by SMS and asks you to send them the phone number that sent the
spam/fraud, 3. send that phone number to 33700 in an SMS, 4. 33700
confirms registration. Vocal spam/fraud:
1. Send an SMS in the format "spam vocal xxxxxxxxxx" to 33700, substituting
xxxxxxxxxx by the phone number that called. 2. The 33700 service confirms
registration.