France Numbering/Dialing (Written Format of Phone Numbers) [telecom]

Are you referring to what Joseph Singer wrote in his Feb.25 post?:

While Joseph didn't specify one way or another, for over ten years now, France has had full national dialing, with that leading '0', written immediately in front of the single-digit geographic "sector" code, with NO parsing.

And then John Levine also wrote in reply to you on March 7:

Actually, I think (and I could be misinformed on this) that dialing local/national numbers (in full national format) with a leading '0' routes the call via your primary chosen carrier, similar to "straight" seven-digit-dialed home-NPA toll calls here in the US (where such can be dialed), and _1+_ten-digit-dialed toll calls here in the US and Canada as well, in both cases where the caller has NOT prefixed a

Leading digits OTHER than '0' are to selecta specific carrier, and FranceTelecom has their own leading non-zero digit, which would be dialed in place of the '0' if one's primary carrier did not happen to be FranceTelecom, yet the caller chose to use them on a "per-call" basis (or one didn't know offhand who the primary carrier on that line happens to be and wants to be certain that their call routes via FranceTelecom. This is similar to the use of forcing a 101-XXXX+ carrier code prefix before 1+ten-digit-dialed toll calls from the US/Canada (and "straight" seven-digit-dialed toll calls from within the US where such exists).

(Repeat the above two paragraphs for 0+ type special billed calls within the NANP, ss well as 011+ sent-paid International and Overseas calls from the NANP, as well as 01+ for special billed internanational and overseas calls from the NANP, regarding the presence vs. lack of,

I do think that INITIALLY, circa 1996/97/98, local/national calls made within France which started off simply as '0'/etc. were routed via FranceTelecom, yet callers could still "force" the call via other carriers with different (non-zero) leading digits, but the plan was eventually for customers to "declare" their desired default carrier, determined by the legacy leading '0', and FranceTelecom has their own dedicated (non-zero) leading digit.... similar to (but not exactly the same as to) how initially (1984 and early 1985, where Equal Access had been introduced), if you "opted out" from "pic'ing" a carrier (ignored all mailed ballots, refused to choose on any followup phone calls, etc), you'd be "defaulted" to AT&T for your inter-LATA toll calls. But for those who did choose a primary carrier, and chose one other than AT&T, there was still 10-288 (now 101-0288); and how starting in early 1985, the FCC changed it to where you HAD to choose a carrier or else have a primary carrier chosen for you -- even customers who previously "opted-out" had to now choose or have one chosen for them. (alhough "no pic" is valid option, but that means you have NO primary inter-LATA carrier associated with your line).

Regular (POTS) domestic calls within France's +33 are thus usually dialed with ten-digits, a '0' followed by nine "significant" digits, while when viewed from outside of France, internationally, they have a NINE signifcant digits domestic numbering plan, dialed after their

France, or at least the Paris metro area, has had some changes over to its numbering and dialing plan in recent decades -- late 1970s,

There was a time prior to the late 1970s? early/mid 1980s?, when the Paris metro area did have 7-digit local numbering/dialing, and their area code was simply just '1'.

Within France, the access codes for national and international toll were two digits beginning with '1', i.e., 1X+. Several special service "short" codes such as Police, Operator, Telco Repair, etc. were just the two digits '1X'. Much of this also changed in the later 1990s as well.

But in the 7-digit days in Paris (the rest of France back then had

I know that Paris had 3L-4N numbering during the days of lettered exchange names, simlar to the largest cities in the UK years ago (London, Birmingham, Edinburgh in Scotland, Glasgow in Scotland, Liverpool, Manchester), and in the US many years ago (New York City in the 1920s, Philadelphia until 1946, Chicago until 1948, and Boston until 1949). The letters 'O' and 'Q' were on the digit '0' on the dials in France. The UK had the letter 'O' on the digit '0' as well. In Paris, I don't think that any exchange names began with a 'Q', but there was ROQuette, which would be '700' from ROQ. But in addition to OPEra (073 from OPE), there was also:

OBErkampf (023 from OBE) OBServatoire (027 from OBS) ODEon (033 from ODE) ORNano (076 from ORN)

Finally, I have done some google searches for the French national regulator, and numbering plan administrator, as well as looked at FranceTelecom's website, but everything is in French ONLY, apparantly with no option for English. But I do remember some of the mid/late

- a/b