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Hi there, good luck with your move, I hope it does work out for you.  My wife and I have been here for almost 12 months and love it, but, I have to be honest I think it's very difficult for you to walk into work in France if you don't speak the language.  As has been said elsewhere on these forums, the number of unemployed in France is higher than in the UK and that includes people who speak the language perfectly well!  If there is a business you could start here then look at that option, if you had to deal with ex-pats only initially would there be enough contacts in your local area (Which is where??) and can you cover the high set up fees of running a business in France  (Everything from tax / accountants fees / social charges etc seem to be higher over here but then the general cost of living for us has dropped).  It's not as easy / cheap to start a business in France as it is in the UK but it's not impossible. I believe there are a number of people in your situation that have decided to work illegally, by doing odd jobs here and there or even trying to sell there services to others within a trade, but I can't personally recommend that. Sooner or later something might happen that will ruin your whole adventure.  So all in all - learn the language - it's a priority.  Even more so than doing up that old barn / house / flat or whatever.  The language will help you in the long run with the builders and the like you have to deal with too.  My wife is learning French quicker than me as she gets to integrate with the locals more than I do (I still work for a UK company, commuting frequently, and talking English all day!) so she is benefitting from that and I must admit I feel ashamed of not being more fluent, especially as all my local friendly french neighbours are non-stop chatterbox's and I would love to be able to join in a bit more! Please feel free to drop me another email if you want and I can give you a contact number in france or UK if you've not left yet, and both my wife and I would be happy to talk to you about stuff we can help with! Toby.

I've used Cegetel ADSL since March and apart from a couple of configuration issues initially, i've found it all very good, most problems being related to weather conditions.  Even though I pay for an upto 8Mb service though, due to exchange issues, I think it's "only" running at 1600Kbps (Sympathy go's to all those 56k modem users.....) They offered a decent all inclusive rate at the time compared with Wanadoo and a couple of others and I must admit, even with the thick stone walls we have here, the Wireless connection still works very well - I can easily sit in a sunny spot in the garden!!  Visit http://www.cegetel.net to see if they work in your town. Good luck! Toby.

[quote]They would be targetting UK drivers, they are the only ones whose lights will not have deflectors......... and about time too! When I drove back from the UK last month I got fed up with being blinde...[/quote] In defence, I have a Peugeot 307 which when I knew I was coming to France I paid for the official Peugeot Headlamp Protector Kit which includes the option to convert the headlight dip for driving in Europe - how surprised was I when it turned up and included 2 black stickers to put on the headlight protectors to "convert" them to european standards - and they weren't reusable, so I've since had to use a piece of black tape....  but I must agree that most of the british cars I see on the road over in france don't even bother with GB stickers never mind headlight adapters.  It's only a small price to pay so there really is no excuse. All the best,   Toby.

Hi All, Further to my post a few weeks back I now have a FT phone line installed.  After going onto "degrouptest.com", it appears that the available choices for me are : All France Telecom Options. Cegetel Option 3 Upto 4Mbps. Tiscal Option 3 Upto 1Mbps. Looking at all the appropriate websites, Cegetel's current ADSLMAX 8MEGA for €24,90 per month looks the most appealing.  I'm a constant user (mainly leave my PC on all day for emails and MSN use and for Skype telephone calls) and don't upload / download massive files - the biggest file is probably a 10mb database that I email back to the UK on a regular basis.  No big P2P filesharing or anything like that.  Would consider a limited download service, but would prefer unlimited to cover any eventuality. My question is does anyone have any reasons for not going with Cegetel over and above Tiscali or Wanadoo who seem to be dearer for the same service (Have I missed anything in the T's and C's that will commit me to 5 years with Cegetel etc...). The other question is I have a D-Link DSL-G604T Wireless ADSL router in the UK which I would like to use in France.  In the UK it uses a PPPoA connection type - but can use PPPoE, Static, DHCP, Bridge or CLIP - would one of those be compatible with the Cegetel service??  I presume I will need a different line connection / ADSL filter? Thanks for all your help on this. Toby.    

Mine was a similar experience to that above - we walked into our local Banque Populaire last Tuesday and opened an account there and then - we took in all sorts of paperwork with us after reading this forum, but they only asked us for passports.  Very friendly staff and have already received a welcome letter to our UK address.. If only everything was this easy.... Toby.

Thank you one and all.  I cheated by using someone elses number who lives in the same road about 100m away and the degrouptest site said that France Telecoms service were all possible, N9uf telecoms were impossible, Cegetel had 2 of 6 services available, tiscali just had Option 3, 1Mbps / 128kbps and free and alice were impossible. Looking through those ISP's, Cegetel's basic service looks promising and I guess wanadoo's too.  Any preferences here?  I need constant (hence adsl) connection, unlimited download capacity and anything faster than 256k is perfectly fine.  Ideally I would prefer to use a Wi-Fi router like I use in the UK so that both the wife and I can use our laptops with ease, something I would prefer to buy rather than rent (Would our UK one work in France?  it's quite configurable for different types of services etc and I guess getting the right cable etc would be easy).  Thanks again for any more assistance or past experience with any of the above. Toby.  

Hello All, First post to this forum, so sorry if I am asking in the wrong place. I am moving out to Eymoutiers in February and currently getting utilities etc sorted out, including a phone line with France Telecom.  There was no previous connection to the house so a new line is having to be installed. I would like to get a ADSL service installed as soon as possible when arrive, but as I do not have a phone number to put into the www.degrouptest.com site, I cannot check availability in the town.  Our house is located in the heart of the town so I imagine (Wishful thinking!) that we are within a reasonable distance of the exchange. Does anyone on this usergroup know of availability of ADSL services in Eymoutier and have any thoughts on providers (I have read a lot on this forum on different ISPs in general, but if Eymoutiers service is limited to just a couple then specific feedback on those would be appreciated).  Obviously without a phone line installed this may not be possible at all anyway but i'm trying to check sooner rather than upon arrival when I will need to use it.  (There is an Internet Cafe in the town, so again i'm assuming that there is some sort of coverage....) Thanks a lot in advance, I hope you can help, or point me in the right direction.  Toby.