Good mobile phone contract sought.

[Deepdale]

Hello everyone; I've been a very interested observer of this forum for sometime, as well as its predecessor, and have been amazed by the co-operative and good-natured content of the answers given, to the many questions posed on here, in various topic headings. I wonder can anyone help me with the above request, and give me the benefit of their experiences and recommendations. Voilà: My 20 yr old daughter is due to start, next month,  a 9 month "stage" in Dieppe, with EDF, as part of her GB university studies in French. Like all of her age, her left hand  seems permanently fixed to her English mobile phone, sending texts, messages, and calls, at will to just about anyone she knows. We are worried naturally, as to how she might keep in touch when in Dieppe, and are obviously aware of all the financial pitfalls of merely using an English mobile haphazardly in France.

In GB she has a Tesco contract on her "Blackberry" phone, with an allocation (I think), per month of something like 1000 texts, several 100's minutes' calls, and 500MB, or even maybe 1GB of data use which she can use to access the internet. She also has through her phone, this "Blackberry instant messaging" function which means she can contact her friends, who also have similar mobiles, for free, and so not use up the already massive amount of texts.

She can't use any of this abroad we know, without financial penalty, but we don't want her feeling cut off from her friends  in GB. Does anyone know of a similar package on a French provider? I believe her phone is "unlocked", and she wants to use this,  and if it is helpful, we have a Bougues pay-as-you-use sim card in our phone, which we use when we are in France, and top-up when required.Can anyone let me know what are the best options?

Whilst writing this, and finalising her accommodation arrangements, I've just wondered also about how she goes about registering/paying her income taxes etc etc.Do new young workers in France pay "emergency tax rate" initially, and then get refunded as in GB later on? I realise this may not be the exact place to receive such a reply but any help you can give this somewhat frazzled parent on these matters at this time,would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[Hereford]

Hello

Can't help over telephone but:

There is no PAYE in France, tax is paid after sending in a tax form.  Lots of deductions though from salary, which her employer will do automatically and they will get her a social security number I think.

Only caveat is that possibly her university has a special scheme for this sort of "stage".

H

[PaulT]

Cannot help re phone but on the question of tax etc an ex colleague of mine duaghter spent some time in France teaching as part of her uni course and he never mentioned anythong about French tax etc so are there dispensations for students?

[JohnFB]

You might try the Free mobile offering which is cancelable at any time. Its €20 a month, unlimited calls to fixed and mobiles in France, unlimited calls to 23 European countries fixed lines, plus sms I can't remember.

JFB

[Gardener]

Try sosh.fr sms illimites in France and Europe 2 wifi and 2go internet for 19,90 euro a month

[Boiling a frog]

Or

free calls to the UK internet and SMS

https://www.b-and-you.fr/

[Deepdale]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]Or

free calls to the UK internet and SMS

https://www.b-and-you.fr/[/quote]

To all those who kindly gave details of the deals available: thank you. We went with the "B and You" in the end. An unlocked new smartphone was obtained through Ebay  in GB, and the offer seems ideal at 19.99 euros per month, all in, including free calls back to fixed GB lines, and heaps of data provision which, as well as offering a lot of internet access, allows you to send, via an app, free text messages back to GB as well. There seemed to be some problem with the equivalent Free offer, which seemed to experience some problems sending/receiving free texts to/from GB so we left that one alone. Thank you again.