- Currency
- The
Euro: €
Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie
- ATM
- Visa, MasterCard, Eurocard (any
bank with the CB sign will do)
- AmEx (a few in the very large
cities and everywhere else via Le
- Credit Lyonnais Bank)
- Cirrus (via Le Credit Mutuel and
Le Credit Agricole)
- It will be very easy to get cash
with Visa, MasterCard and Eurocard possible with AmEx, difficult with Cirrus
and impossible with Plus.
- Credit cards
- Accepted everywhere. Look for
the sign CB in green-blue Visa, MasterCard, Eurocard (Carte Bleue network)
AmEx, JCB (sometimes, and nearly always where there are tourists)
- Travelers checks
- Easy to cash at any bank. There
are often charges...
- AmEx, Visa and Thomas Cook work
- Post-Checks are cashable at every
Post Office.
- Foreign exchange
- Paris: Best rates are
usually given at banks or at the American Express office (near the Opera).
The best
rate you can ever find is La Banque de France, but the line is so long
that you need to change a lot of money to make it worth. Another fair
bet is Comptoir
Change Opera. In Paris, there are change offices open at any time everywhere
tourists go (bad rates, but no commission ). Nearly every currency can
be
changed.
- Rest of France: definitely
banks. It will always be easier to change something into euros than euros
into something since banks have a limited stock of foreign currency.