Receiving mail in Paris
 

While we are in Paris for the month of May, 2008, my wife and I would like to receive our absentee ballots to vote in California's "real" primary election June 3. Because of a stopover in New York on the way back, we will not be back in CA in time to do it.

We might be able to use the mail box at our rented Paris apartment, but I am not sure whether that would work (key? having a recognized name for the delivery?). We will get advice about that out sooner or later from the apartment owner.

But if we want to have mail sent to us "au bureau de Poste" through the equivalent of general delivery in the USA, how does the mail need to be addressed to us? What would we ask for when we go to pick it up? We are staying in the 5e.

x-name-x
Poste Restante
75001 PARIS LOUVRE

That will get your mail to the Paris GPO on rue du Louvre, open 23 hours and 15 minutes a day, 365 days a year (366 days this year).

You can use any other post office for "poste restante" ("general delivery") if you have the specific address of the post office that you want. You must always have people indicate "poste restante" on the envelope in any case.

General Delivery is called 'Poste restante' in France.
You need to find the location of your nearest post office (La Poste) by looking up the list for Paris: http://www.laposte.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=281
There are three post offices in 5e - choose the one nearest.
Address your mail as:
Mr John Brown
POSTE RESTANTE
PARIS MOUFFETARD
10 RUE DE L EPEE DE BOIS
75005 PARIS

'05' in the postal code represents Paris arrondissement.
You have to take your passport as ID and pay a fee of 0.50 euro when collecting your mail.

Thank you both.

Will we find a "Poste Restante" guichet at La Poste we direct the mail to?

Or do we go to any guichet there and ask "Bonjour Monsieur. Avez vous (or Nous voudrions?] des postes restantes pour [our names]"?

There used to be a 'poste restante' desk but now just about every post office has a line and all of the desks are marked 'toutes opérations'.

So you just wait your turn and tell them "je viens pour poste restante" and give them your passport. There may be a small charge per piece of mail. In the old days, it was the price of a domestic stamp per item -- that would make it 54 eurocents if that's the way they do it now. 55 eurocents starting on March 1st.

Kerouac--

Merci, encore une fois!!

Theoretically, any letter addressed

x-name-x
Poste Restante
Paris

will go to the GPO on rue du Louvre.

Any letter addressed <i>poste restante</i> with any of the 20 post codes for Paris (75001, 75002, 75003, etc.) without any additional street address will go to the main post office of the arrondissement in question.

2 further points to mention:

- mail is held for 15 days

- it used to be the custom to
write the name on the envelope
in the format &quot;Lastname, Firstname&quot;.
If you are told there's no mail,
have them recheck. It happened to
me years ago.

Rob

It's been over 30 years, so I have no idea if they still do it, but we lived for the mail that came to us at American Express in Paris.

Are you going to give the address to the Registrar of Voters or have someone forward the ballot to you? I wonder if there'll be enough time?

Perhaps you've decided this, but depending when you leave France, I would wait to mail the ballot in the US rather than in France. At least, if you will be in NY about a week before the primary, in any case. Because I know your vote doesn't count if it isn't received by the primary date, and they won't mail them out more than 30 days before the election date -- with the mail system between France and the US, you just don't know how long it could take on either end. I've had mail from Paris to the East Coast of US take one week, and I've had it take 3 weeks for no obvious reason.

Thanks to all of you for the information and the advice.

The Registrar of Voters will send the ballots to us at a French address (I don't know if a &quot;poste restante&quot; address will be acceptable) and recommends we use some sort of express mail to return them.

It may turn out to be feasible to have the ballots sent to the apartment address, as we will arrive there on 30 April, and ballots won't be sent out until a few days later.

Advice on how to find and use FedEx or its equivalent in Paris would be useful. Does mail sent &quot;par avion&quot; really get delayed for such a long time?

We will arrive in New York on Sunday, 1 June, and the ballots must be received by 3 June, so we will send them from France.

I guess you have no choice if you aren't in NY until Sunday. Yes, all of the mail I've sent from France has been &quot;par avion&quot; and some has taken a long time. You just don't know, but I guess you have nothing to lose by trying. You may not even get it until the middle of May, so you are counting on it getting to California in two weeks, and that includes the time from Paris to the US and then from the East Coast to California -- which alone can take, what, five business days?

According Fed Ex's Paris web site, sending a &quot;letter-sized&quot; mailing from Paris to San Diego costs at least 75 euros--wow!! Is there a less expensive &quot;non postal&quot; private company that mails Paris-to-USA?

Most of the mail I send to the US takes 3-5 days (east or west coasts), but there have been a few occasions of 10 days.

kerouac, you have really gotten a letter from Paris to California in only 3 days? I know I am in a US post office Bermuda Triangle (seriously, I have a bad one), but it usually takes 3-4 days (and 4 is common) for a letter to get from my home near Wash DC to Ohio. Once I got a postcard from Paris in just under a week, I think, and was delighted.

Of course, some of that depends the date and time you mail it in Paris, also, I'm sure -- they don't do pickups on Sunday, I assume, or after a certain time on Saturday.

I heard a news report that California is already accepting absentee ballots. True? If so you can vote before you go.

Hopscotch--

CA has three elections this year:

1. A presidential primary 5 Feb (We got our absentee ballots yesterday--now called &quot;ballot by mail&quot; because you don't need to pretend you can't vote on election day) which also include several ballot propositions

2. The regular legislative and Congressional primary and &quot;may-or-may-not-pick a winner&quot; municipal election 3 June, also with propositions

3. The &quot;for keeps&quot; national election day in November, also with propositions

By-mail ballots for the June election will be sent out starting 29 days before 3 June and must be received back by 3 June--thus creating the problem I am trying to solve.

My experience sending stuff to Holland and Germany this past Christmas is:
The USPS sends everything by air. There isn't even a book rate anymore.
Priority Mail took about 10 days to Holland from Michigan. It's about the same, sometimes longer, coming this way.
UPS and FedEx charge a queen's ransom for anything.

In past years I would have mail addressed to me in France as:
<u>LAST NAME</u>, first name
Poste Restante
Paris
750XX
FRANCE

XX is the arrondisement, of course. I used the Hotel de Ville post office in the 4th when I was living just across the river in the 5th.

I would not trust a county clerk to have the brains or interest to follow your instructions. Have your absentee ballot mailed to a friend who will expedite it to you by Priority Mail to Poste Restante. Tell your friend to mail it in a big pink envelope so you can see it from behind the window. French postal clerks have even less brains than California county clerks and will certainly miss your envelope the first few times. That is reality. Been there and done this.

When you go to pick up your mail in Paris bring your passport and a euro or two. I don't know what they charge these days.

If you arrive in NY on the 1st
is there no way you can send by
express for delivery on the 3rd?

I live in Canada and can Priority
Post something that is guaranteed
next day delivery in another major
Canadian city... surely you have something similar in the US?

It would seem preferable and less expensive than mailing from Paris.

Rob