Thanks everyone for this discussion. I popped into Leclerc to browse this morning and realised I don’t want/need a smart phone for nearly 100€. All I need is a mobile phone that will sit in my desk drawer ready to accept text or recorded messages from my bank / barclaycard etc when they insist I give my French mobile number. So back to Leclerc this afternoon for a cheap as chips phone and their sim card. It’s true I will probably be wandering round the garden trying to find a signal, but at least it’ll keep my online providers happy and won’t cause me huge grief.
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Done and dusted - just bought an Echo Clap 2 (unfortunate name) phone for 17.99€, SIM for 5€ and a Reglo Mobile plan for 3.50€ per month which entitles me to 1 hour of calls and 100 texts (which I won’t be using). So I now have a French mobile number to give the bank, Amazon, etc etc. Won’t they be happy!
It’s only taken me 12 years living here to do this. 
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@SuePJ
“It’s only taken me 12 years living here to do this”.
That’s the beauty of Survive France.
It has an answer, or several answers, to the most far-fetched of problems or questions that life throws up.
Aren’t you glad you joined?! 
I got the Echo Clap 2…!!!
Ages ago.
Le Clerc, yes.
But…
I have no use for a portable phone at all,
So the SIM I bought could be the cheapest ever possible.
Also Le Clerc.
It was essential for nothing except filling in forms that demanded a mobile phone number.
However!
So impressed with its loud and clear, immediate, on the spot, any part of the house or garden connection…with Bouyges, mostly, that it seemed like a good idea to buy it a more worthy SIM…at 1.50e per month, for Life Eternal.
Or something.
Then the bad news.
Charging the battery has to be done ONLY with the gadget supplied. Nothing else will do, even though a collection of rechargers fit.
Worst of all…it doesn’t keep any charge longer than a day or two.
So unless I get a solar charger, or stay home, close to a socket…it very quickly dies. And is useless.
Still…OK…I keep filling in the phone number, and that, although absolutely worthless, is always, readily accepted on www forms.
Next phone I might get…should have its own solar charger built in.
Oh dear, sorry to hear that - but I think a course of antibiotics should sort you out 
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Yes, that isn’t surprising because they use different satellites or networks etc so one may work where the other doesn’t.
HA! HA HA! Ptf…What a cheeky wag, you are.
However, if ever I am ever careless/dumb enough to pick up Gonorrhea…I won’t bother with fancy names for it.
The French word… Blenn-or-Ragie could be better… as a cute name for a portable.
I have a solar charger that I use with my phone. I bought it from Lidl.
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ooooo…OK. Chevrefeuille…so…?
You can’t just walk away, now, leaving that micro snip of information, Tell all, please? Ive downloaded a big book on all kinds of DIY solar energy projects, but right now, have almost zero clues about where to begin.
For example…I’ve got two very heavy lead not lithium ebike batteries, now redundant, because I discovered to my great joy, my old bike works on lithium.
So …can I join them together and use them as a power store, not for a portable phone, but maybe lighting? Electric blanket? Water heater…???
Be sure to add “only joking” on comments like that, Peter… The truly dumb, can never be sure, serious info or not…
Switching to serious mode - sadly they are increasingly useless for the other kind, as the organism is now resistant to almost all of the antibiotics which have been used to treat it and there is now just one combination (azithromycin and ceftriaxone) recommended for 1st line treatment - in fact there was a case resistant to this combination recorded in the UK in 2018 and this very resistant strain has also popped up in Japan, Spain and France.
[that’s some serious thread drift :)]
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My e-bike has a power outlet from the ‘speedometer’ that would allow me to charge my phone or a sat-nav from the bike’s battery. The solar charger has a solar panel and a lithium battery and connects to the phone via a USB lead. The lithium battery can also be charged from the mains. It charges my phone either using the lithium battery or directly from solar power.
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…hmmm…can’t be rocket science, to find a way to connect a USB phone charger, to my new lithium battery, too, I suppose… will google it, thank you…
I sympathize with you Sue as both my husband and I have second hand basic mobiles with UK sim cards for emergency use only (including to a family member) which is less than once a year! I have stopped going through with an online purchase before now when input of a mobile phone number is compulsory. I once put my dead mother’s old phone number in and it worked! I have rung the company and explained the situation and progressed that way. I have today sent an email to Credit Agricole say I do not have a mobile phone as they are not “obligatory” so what do they suggest. I will let you know if I get a response. If mobile phones and their expense have become compulsory perhaps we should also be handed one at birth! In 2011 I did get a sim from Leclerc which charged about 1€ per month (probably more now) but that is still 12€ every year for something you do not use and never look at.
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Thanks for the sympathy Melissa. Your experience is identical to mine - on-line transactions not completed because the ONLY option is a mobile phone number and not a land line. Sadly Leclerc’s prices have increased over the years. MOH has a contract that sounds similar to yours, but 2 € a month plus option to top up. Now, the minimum is 3.5€ per month but no option to top up. I’m fixed to one hour of calls and 100 texts within that 3.5€, but since I never plan to use it for outgoing calls / texts, only for incoming that limit is not an issue. I’d be interested to know how you get on with CA. At the moment I have a security system with them that sends a code to my email, but this requirement for a mobile number seems to be new/additional. And I have capitulated!
How do you manage without a mobile telephone though? (An unsmart basic one, I mean).
Actually if you don’t have children at school and work on the spot I suppose it is possible but I certainly can’t manage without, even though I use it 99% of the time for text messages.
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Children/partner - not much difference to me. Both need corralling by text from time to time.
Can’t think of a single time when a mobile phone would have been anything but a beastly plastic blob, that performs none of the promised magic.
I think it must be wonderful to be able to call emergency services …if something terrible happens. I feel bad about rejecting that as an obligation.
Acquiring a drawer full of obsolete, failed, do not know if it is broken or just inadequate info, gadgets, is the best I’ve done, so far.
This latest …battery dead after two days or less, …hasn’t made portables more appealing.
However. Internet connection, WiFi hotspots, multiply. Easy, safe connection in all railway/bus stations, most cafés, restaurants, bars. Inc LeClerc cafe. Always a recharge available there, too. I love my antique Archos 10i Neon. It works as a phone too, maybe Skype connects via a sim. Maybe not. …Lost with that thought…
Yikes! Just seen the ad attaching itself to this SF page, 58 Quid’s for a 600 £ iPhone!? It must be rubbish to have so much reduction.
MOH has been looking at this - thanks Mark. It could be very interesting for us, but it’s not clear. Do you have to have an Orange mobile phone contract in order to use it with our Orange live box?