France

Time Traveler | Cool Facts! | Technology | Post Explorer

Time Traveler
  In the decades following the French Revolution in 1789, there was a major restructuring of the postal services into a national organization termed the Directorate of Posts. The system started developing from the beginning of the 19th century, particularly to keep pace with the Industrial Revolution raging throughout Europe. Historic firsts such as post money orders, registered letters, parcels, savings accounts and post cheques were all inaugurated during the 19th century. The first French pre-postage stamp was a milestone in postal service history - it was the first introduction of prepayment in the country as well as an ingenious simplification to the monetary structure of the postal system.

A post office in France.

Cool Facts!
  Another twist in the plot of the battle between snail mail and e-mail: the French postal service La Poste has allied with the United States Postal Service and Canadian Post to start an Electronic Courier Service. This is intended to entice consumers who wish to have both the convenience of e-mail and the security of snail mail.

Technology
  Come the 20th century, the fully motorized vehicle mail service was started for the conveyance of mails in France. The modern aircraft had inevitably been used for the communication between France and its colonies in Africa and Latin America. A postal airline Aéropostale was set up exclusively for internal and international airmail links. World War II had a severe disruption of the French postal system but it was soon revived in the post-war period. The nighttime airmail service in 1945 was a first instance of revivement. Another improvement included the use of faster, more efficient turbojets, which carried 20 times more mail than in 1948. Finally, in the 1970s, construction began on a network of mechanized sorting centers to cope with the demand.

Post Explorer
  The postal service in France is called La Poste. The brightly colored yellow post-boxes cannot be missed along the streets and the "La Poste" signs identify the location of a post-office.

If you are staying in France for a while and wish to receive incoming mail, sign up for the Poste Restante service. Then notify whoever's sending your mail to write down 'Poste Restante' next to your name on the envelope.

Pretty obvious from the distances involved, mail can be sent cheaply to neighboring European countries, while mail bound for the Far East and Oceania will cost much more.