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How do I interpret French postal addresses?


Richard
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Ok, I feel like a real numpty having to ask this question....  but how do I interpret a French postal address?  For example, my friend's address is (changed to protect the innocent):

Le Guillery, 37290

Preuilly-Sur-Claise

I am, unfortunately, so used to postal addresses being in the form:

Name

House #, Street Name

City, County, Postal Code

Thanks in advance!

Richard

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[quote user="Patf"]I wonder if the french postcodes are as specific as the UK ones?
For example, our daughter moved from one street in a UK town to another in the same town, and her postcode changed. Not the first 2 letters, but the rest.
[/quote]No nothing like - they don't even take you to a village - often a dozen or more communes share the same post code here.

In fact, I don't know of many countries (none I can think of but I expect they exist) which are as specific as the UK.

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French codes are not nearly as specific as in UK.

e.g. the UK code will narrow a location down to several houses in the same road

In France our code 46*** covers about 10 "towns" - each the size of a modest English village. Within 46*** Toytown is our hamlet, no street names so no numbers just a postlady with a good memory or lots of crib sheets. Even within Toytown most simply live in Le Bourg.

HTH

John

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[quote user="Patf"]I wonder if the french postcodes are as specific as the UK ones?
For example, our daughter moved from one street in a UK town to another in the same town, and her postcode changed. Not the first 2 letters, but the rest.
[/quote]

And until post the felling of the Twin Towers of Liberal Capitalism and the resulting security industry most rural areas in france had no street/road numbers and of course the road/street had no name.

All that has changed and been incorporated into ViaMichelin,Mappy, GPS folk lore.

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[quote user="Mr Coeur de Lion"]I like French address system, normally only requires two lines and little writing. Very efficient.[/quote]

Yes but....  I'm always amazed that we ever receive anything in the countryside given that there is so little information within the address.  It seems to rely on local knowledge.

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I don't think so -  I have  been told that the mail for our new address (in a different dept) is still sorted dealt with by the post office in the larger town where our previous mail was done - different post code and different department, so the postal code may determine which post office deals with it, but it is by no means exclusive to that post code.

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UK Postcodes strat with a 2 letter code indicating normally post town. In some cases Fy = Fylde = Flat area round Blackpool they may not be instantly clear to people without local knowledge. They are then followed by digits which give the approxiamate area within the post town. Then thee charracters which lable the address to within about 20 dwellings.

I believe most French codes are two digits for the Department, followed 1 digit and two zeros. Does anybody have a post code which does not end in 00 ?

I must get out more
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Sure do.  ours is xxx50 - changed to protect the guilty.

 

My understanding of the system is that the system works as follows:

First 2 digits are the departement number

The remaining digits are then allocated on the basis of the importance of the town or group of communes.

So xx000 is the prefecture.

xx100 will be the most important subprfecture

xx200 will be the next most important subprefecture

 

After that arrondisements, suburbs etc start to pick up the numbers in between

 

so an arrondisement for the prefecture or a suburb of said city could get xx010 for example

 

And so it works outwards from each prefecture and sub prefecture until the whole departement has been covered.

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The system works so well in the countryside with relatively little data because the postmen/women are good at their job and spend a long time doing the same round so know the route and the names by heart, unlike the UK, where the mail is delivered by barely literate eastern Europeans on short term contracts who often open anything that might be valuable for themselves and dump the rest in the gutter. Well, thats my experience of UK post at a few different addresses anyway.[:@]

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[quote user="cooperlola"]

In fact, I don't know of many countries (none I can think of but I expect they exist) which are as specific as the UK.

[/quote]

I believe Canada and The Netherlands have adopted methods which provide the precision of the UK model - if you adress a letter J Smith, No 42,  WZ6 29YZ it will be deliverable.

The UK postcode system was designed with sorting mechanisation in mind. It was envisioned that that sorting offices would be equipped so that machines would read and sort mail into individual postmen's walks. I suspect that investment did not follow the vision.

One of the consequences of the postcode system is that it can be mapped directly onto geographical areas to provide a very powerful demographic database (eg ACORN) of use in marketing, insurance risk assessment, local and national government planning and so forth. And for people with a poor expression of the map reading gene it enables their satnav to deliver them safely into unknown territories.

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[quote user="dave21478"]The system works so well in the countryside with relatively little data because the postmen/women are good at their job and spend a long time doing the same round so know the route and the names by heart, unlike the UK, where the mail is delivered by barely literate eastern Europeans on short term contracts who often open anything that might be valuable for themselves and dump the rest in the gutter. Well, thats my experience of UK post at a few different addresses anyway.[:@]

[/quote]Funny because in the 28 years we lived in our previous home we had the same miserable g*t (white and undoubtedly British born) the whole time and when I was staying with friends in a nearby farm last year he was still there.  The only difference here is that our postman is pleasant.
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[quote user="Clarkkent"][quote user="cooperlola"]

In fact, I don't know of many countries (none I can think of but I expect they exist) which are as specific as the UK.

[/quote]

I believe Canada and The Netherlands have adopted methods which provide the precision of the UK model - if you adress a letter J Smith, No 42,  WZ6 29YZ it will be deliverable.

The UK postcode system was designed with sorting mechanisation in mind. It was envisioned that that sorting offices would be equipped so that machines would read and sort mail into individual postmen's walks. I suspect that investment did not follow the vision.

One of the consequences of the postcode system is that it can be mapped directly onto geographical areas to provide a very powerful demographic database (eg ACORN) of use in marketing, insurance risk assessment, local and national government planning and so forth. And for people with a poor expression of the map reading gene it enables their satnav to deliver them safely into unknown territories.

[/quote]

According to TomTom it is only the UK and the Netherlands for which post codes are usable.

I suppose if mechanised sorting was not going to be used some years back then there was no need for such an intricate system. As people have said they receive their post in France without problem.

The requirement for an intricate system is not one for the mail services but us Joe Public who want to plan routes on our computers or input the post code followed by asking what is the house number on to our Sat Navs and be taken to the property.

Perhaps it needs the likes of the various internet based route planning sites and the Sat Nav manufacturers to get together to 'post code' the countries such as France along the lines of the Uk and Netherlands to make using them far easier.

Paul

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Quote "The only difference here is that our postman is pleasant." Unquote.

My experience exactly of our postie here in Bayonne too.. If I see him elsewhere on his rounds he always gives me a cheery 'Bonjour'..

What a change from the surly ones we had in the UK..
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Well, here in Mid-Wales, our young postie Jason is always friendly, obliging and smiling, as have been all our post-people in the nearly 40 years we've lived here. Many years ago, the postwoman even got out of her van to give my husband's car a push when it got stuck in the mud. Surly?  Never! [:D]

Incidentally, our post-people (almost always women) in rural Normandy are equally friendly, smiling and obliging.  May be something to do with town versus country?

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[quote user="KathyF"]

  May be something to do with town versus country?

[/quote]Well, in that regard we are much the same here as we were in the UK, Kathy.  However, I guess that the kind of round which requires a van and involves a bit of driving is something you don't give up in a hurry and thus perhaps it's a job that has more long-termers in it than the urban rounds do.
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In France it is one of the best rewaded and most cushy jobs, no wonder they are so happy, and by showing it they are rubbing it in to the rest of the population!

In the UK my postcode localises my address to within 12 houses, in France I share the same postcode with 100000 households, a young German friend sent a thankyou card to me in France but could not remember my address so wrote my name correctly followed by one very mis-spelt word from my address and then the postcode, I got the letter.

In the UK I dont know how many never make it to me but hardly a week goes by without letters arriving for one of the other 3 villages in the UK with the same name despite them being correctly addressed and postcoded and having no connection at all with my cul de sac, the peoples names, street names and numbers etc are completely different as are the postcodes.

Another thing all of the factrices round here look like they should be glamour or fashion models [:D]

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[quote user="Chancer"]

In France it is one of the best rewaded and most cushy jobs, no wonder they are so happy, and by showing it they are rubbing it in to the rest of the population!

  [:D]

[/quote]

But this has changed recently as La Poste is now in competition with various private delivery companies. So I expect their jobs will no longer be so secure.

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