French Acronyms and their meanings

Hi I’ve been following this site for a few months and find it really useful, we are living in the UK but will be moving to France in the (hopefully near) future.

For someone who is trying to learn as much as I can about the systems and procedures in France, could I ask that if you use acronyms you at least write in brackets the first time it’s used what it means, I can’t be the only newbie that struggles with this.

Thanks in advance.
Catherine

http://www.survivefrance.com/t/french-acronyms/13712/1

1 Like

Welcome @Katiefleur Maybe we should compile a list?! @could be good for Useful Info pages @terry?

I’ll start;

SPANC - Le Service Public d’Assainissement Non Collectif
CAF - Caisse Allocations Familiales

@moderators can help I bet?!

That’s a great idea, perhaps put them into categories, the one I was unsure of this morning I think was CT in talk of cars and legalities of driving UK cars in France when resident.
Catherine

Contrôle technique - MOT

1 Like

CPAM caisse primaire d’assurance maladie
SNCF société nationale des chemins de fer
LGT lycée général et technique
LP lycée professionnel

1 Like

I seem to remember starting to do this some time back but got very little response. If we get enough suggestions I’ll put them all together in a UI page, James.

1 Like

Confirm that. I just found the draft I wrote some time back.
One that threw me for years was PAF – Paysage Audiovisuel Français if memory serves. Not that knowing what the abbreviation stands for makes you any the wiser about what it actually means!

2 Likes

A UI Terry, if I’m not mistaken that’s an acronym! :wink:

2 Likes

Not an official one but many text messages to me sign off with ‘mdr’. Which is mort de rire’ - theirr equivalent of ‘lol’. (laughing out loud). Like I said, not official but I keep seeing it in correspondence.

3 Likes

I’ll start a new post over in the Useful Info category for this before it gets out of hand! @terry

1 Like

I’ll sort them in to a better arrangement when there are too many

http://www.survivefrance.com/t/french-acronyms/13712

My original idea was to ask people not to use acronyms for at least the first occasion but a file is great for reference. Thanks for doing this. :slight_smile:

I love SPANC (whatever it stands for!!)

1 Like

OK @james. I’ll add the one’s I’ve collected and try to sort them
alphabetically to start with.

2 Likes

SPANC - le Service Public d’Assainissement Non Collectif :wink:

2 Likes

But Sandy, even though not official these are almost more important because you can look them up easily. Thanks

2 Likes

Very good, but still terribly confusing in a thread or article where so many are thrown about. Would you be able to give a short summary in English explaining what each one is? English or French, we live in an age of acronyms and I hate the wretched things. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

*can’t

It is all very well to have acronyms written in full but what would also be even more useful would be what these particular people, departments, organisations did. Am a real beginner here. Used to hate the damn things in the UK too.

2 Likes

We should do that @Niki_Dowrick :slight_smile: