FORUM

Getting phone line installed when we come out in July. Are the sockets the same as here in uk? We have spare phones here & was going to bring one out with us, or will we need to buy one in France.

The phone sockets are very different here but if you understand wiring you could probably wire a French one onto an English phone as I'm sure the phones themselves are the same.

There are now 2 types of connector in France, the old T shape and the more modern RJ45.

Most phones now have removable cables to allow them to be used in different countries, normally with a small square RJ11 connector.

You can buy RJ11 to RJ45 cables in the UK and in France.
If you have the old T shaped connector then you can buy adapters to RJ11

Are you actually having a proper telephone line? or are you having an internet and phone package? If the latter then your internet provider will tell you which connector you need but it will probably be an RJ45

As Allan says, any modern telephone (or DECT base station) probably has an RJ11 socket at the telephone end: the cable on a British phone will have either a BT plug or an RJ11 at the other end. So you have to unplug that and substitute an RJ11/RJ45 cable. If you go that way, I would buy online (eg here, at random, http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Cable-Cordon-RJ1 ... 258baed57b)

Funny cables take some finding and tend to be pricy at brick-and-mortar outlets. But given the price difference between a cable and a whole phone, I'd just buy a new phone: if it's cordless, it's got fresh batteries which are probably half-dead on your old ones.

If you are at any risk of power cuts, it's well worth keeping an old-style, non-cordless, phone handy: that way you can usually call EDF and get them to fix the power. That's assuming, as in my case, that exposure to power cuts is matched by lack of mobile phone signal.