Could be, it seems odd that it hasn’t moved according to La Poste tracking for 48 hours.
Well it’s only made it as far as the international sorting centre at Roissy.
As to La Poste moving at a snail pace - the RM tracking suggests it only left the UK on the 4th, so - although there was status on the La Poste site on the 3rd - it probably hadn’t been handed over at that point.
I’m definitely going to look at the service mentioned above for anything else important as long as recommandé is an option. Wasting three days just getting to a French sorting centre is an absolute pain.
was it sent surface or air?
Surface mail seems to move more quickly (oddly) as we’ve experienced for mail from the UK. There have been suggestions elsewhere that putting an airmail sticker on the envelope is unhelpful - for whatever reason. Leaving the sticker off (people report) seems to speed things us, allegedly.
There doesn’t seem to be a choice any more - though it went through Heathrow so I presume airmail.
Royal Mail offer only Economy (literally1 on the back of a snail as far as I can tell - 2 week delivery target), Standard (3-5 days, no tracking or signature), Tracked, Signed or Tracked and Signed - there is only 10p difference between the last three options, all have 3-5 day delivery targets (well tracked & signed is 3-4 days), none have the option to specify the mode of transport.
1] I am using" literally" here for emphasis - which is a recognised modern usage, even if annoying to some 
I did ask at our Lapost Office when sending an urgent birthday card to UK… and was gently told that All Mail goes by the same means (whatever that is)… so I can’t ask for Air Mail any more. Mind you, some things have arrived amazingly quickly from UK (car bits in 3 working days via Post Office/Laposte)
in the lap of the gods then literally, by all accounts 
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Just going back to the original thread title, I must say, over the last year I’ve primarily used email as a means of contacting companies for a range of different things, from services to goods, and I’ve found that I’ve normally got through. Sometimes having to be more persistent than other times, but nevertheless got through. The main tactics I use are a)eye catching email title and b)persistence with repeat emails and where necessary copying to different mail addresses if the company/organisation has them. Ultimately, I don’t think anyone wants to be accused of ignoring correspondence - sending once or twice and they might be able to explain it away, but not multiple times 
Over the years, we’ve always wondered if our email system was working because we would send emails and not get replies. But now we realise that it is the culture here in France - not to answer them.
Our latest example is with two car leasing companies. One of them is offering superb deals but no matter who we write to, be it individual or via ‘my account’ or ‘contact us’ we don’t get a reply. It worries us that if we had a problem with the car at any time, how would we contact them. Like @billybutcher we don’t speak enough French to be able to have a proper conversation so we can’t call them. The second company, although a slightly more expensive deal but not such a good car (i.e. lower specs) answers our emails within the hour. They are happy to continue communicating with us through emails - they understand our language problem. We don’t know how much business a company like in our first example would lose by not answering emails - is it because they don’t like the English or are they making too much money to bother replying!
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There are businesses in France who understand that not everyone can use the phone - I once booked a table at a local restaurant by email, despite a firm “no email bookings” on their FB site and got a response that the owner sympathised because he had exactly the same issue in English - spoke a bit but nowhere near enough for a phone conversation.
Well, well, well. I am pleased to be able to report an actual email reply from SIAEP who say they passed on my initial email to SAUR and will prod them again for a response - I also sent snail mail to SAUR as well yesterday.
I’m quite pleased, it seems the wheels are turning, albeit a bit slowly.
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Persistence is the key to unlock the door
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It’s a bit like the ‘fermeture exceptionnelle’ issue. Brits are often surprised that small businesses in France seem to close at the drop of a hat - or fail to answer emails - etc… Seems there is a very different approach to ‘customer service’.
But there are at least 2 big and mutually reinforcing forces in play. One is a different culture - that places a higher value than the UK on things like bien-être, family, relationships, community, and less on commercial imperatives; and the other is the actual financial structure of the economy, in particular the fact that in France labour is expensive (whereas in customer-facing roles in the UK it is often cheap), but many other costs - eg. premises - are relatively cheaper in France.
Such differences of both business culture and financial structuring mean - for example - that in the UK you have to ‘sweat your assets’ (eg. stay open a lot) even if it means employing a few part-timers, but in France it’s cheaper - and nicer if you want more family time anyway - to just close for a day or two rather than employ extra staff. Or if your staff are already busy with customers, or on the phone - and your priority is your lifestyle or bien-être rather then business growth - then it might be better to forget the emails rather than employ more staff.
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In the interest of fairness and balance, we booked a table at a restaurant in Autun last week by email AND got confirmation back, our agent and the electrician we work with have all been good by email. Just official stuff doesn’t work for us.
…[…] that customers by and large remain loyal and return to the enterprise when it re-opens after a break.
Yes indeed - actually everywhere ‘lifestyle businesses’ as opposed to ‘growth businesses’ are generally damn good at what they do, because it’s their passion (not just about making money).
And an aspect of the relative stability of small business in France is retention of staff - so when they are available, they really know what they’re doing.
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Become used to it now but at first when we moved to France, we wondered at the 2 week closure of a business for holidays when that would (seemingly) expose them to customer migration to another enterprise such as the local Intermarché with it’s cheaper prices and wider choice.
But that seemed not to be the case in practice.
When the shop returns to normal operation after their break, the customers lined up at the door as if nothing had changed at all.
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Yes I remember one year being at my house and we visited this delightful little bar (converted ground floor of a typical village house) in a little village which felt in the middle of nowhere. A very simple affair but delicious food. It was run by a rather alternative chap who was certainly living a lifestyle. Anyway, on the first visit, we ate, which was mainly at tables outside. I went inside to visit the loo and it was like Aladdin’s cave, as he was selling all sorts of locally made pottery and artwork, then in the corner there was a woman cutting hair. It was all quite bizarre, but quite charming at the same time. Anyway, we enjoyed our time there and before leaving we asked if we could book a table for the following Sunday as we had friends joining us. He said he didn’t operate a booking system but assured us we would be ok if we arrived around 12. So the following Sunday we duly arrived and everywhere was totally shut up, with no sign of anybody or anything. We were obviously very disappointed and left to go elsewhere. A couple of weeks later, we thought we’d try the place again. Lo and behold it was the usual buzz of activity that we had know previously, and the rather wayout owner greeted us with open arms. We asked what had happened for him to be closed on the Sunday we previously planned to visit with friends. His response, ‘yes I had quite a late night on the Saturday, woke up on Sunday, rolled over in bed and spent the day relaxing in bed, so decided I’d close for the day’. We smiled and laughed, and thought to ourselves how typically French. You could not even imagine this happening in the UK, but guess that is indeed the charm of the place, The sometimes rather haphazard nature of life here, especially when you venture into the more rural areas.
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The same with routier restaurants, conge annuelle, every year even when there is another just a few miles away. More than once I have discovered one more to my taste that way, When there were many transport cafes in the UK, they would not dream of closing like that, but perhaps that’s why there are so few of them nowadays.
As to shops, we used to have 2 boulangeries in the large village. My favourite bread is pain de mais and the surviving one bakes them every day, but it must only be a small number or they are very popular because I rarely managed to get one. So a week ago I ordered 3 every week and left it to them to choose the day. They said Thursday and I agreed. The first week, fine, this week confusion, they had either forgotten my order and sold out, or forgotten to make the right number.
The husband, who is the baker, came through and asked, tomorrow? I agreed and so I had to make a 2nd trip to collect them. At no point was there any sign of an apology though. Many years ago a similar thing happened with the, then, other bakery. Just a shrug, but no bread.
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Of course because we know they will be on holiday just as we, their customers, will be at some stage. We expect it because everyone has holidays, that is normal. It is like businesses shutting at lunchtime.
I think the acknowledgement that people who do jobs which involve serving customers are also people with the same rights to a decent lunchtime or holidays is important.
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And equally deserve reasonable pay too.
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