My First Experience with French Bureaucracy

Trying to open a bank account should be an easy simple thing, right? Walk into a bank, wait 20 minutes before someone is willing to see you and then after another 30-45 minutes you walk out with a temporary atm/debit card and some checks. Well, not in France.

On Monday morning I headed to the bank to open my new French bank account only to find out that the bank is closed on Mondays and Sundays. So Tuesday afternoon I headed back to the bank... after going thru the whole ritual of speaking with someone and finding out all the information to open a bank account, I was told that I must now make an appointment to actually open the bank account. Thursday afternoon, back to the bank.

In France (and all of Europe) they do not have credit cards only debit cards ... and the bank kind of puts you on a budget. When opening an account you need to determine how much money you plan to take out of the atm each week and how much money you plan to spend using your debit card each month. Obviously, this is not a country that is aware of the concept of living off your credit cards ... probably a good thing for me these days with my tight budget.

So after 60 minutes of filling out papers and answering questions on my lack of income and how much I plan to spend each week and month I was ready to walk out with my temporary atm/debit card and checks and my new bank account. :) Only if it was that easy ... In about 10 days I should receive a letter in the mail notifying me that my atm/debit card is ready and then I can go back to the bank to pick everything up. Oh, and hopefully my US check should be cleared by then. Approximately 10 days was the answer for everything. Luckily, I have my parents in town otherwise I would be starving!