For many years, French subscribers' telephone numbers consisted of eight digits (including the one-digit area code 1 for all of Paris and its surrounding departments, or a two-digit area code from 20 to 99 for other metropolitan departments; this area code was dialed only after the trunk code 16). The territories of
Overseas France all had their own local numbering plans and used their own country codes but no area codes, and calls between different territories or
Metropolitan France required a dialing international call using the international call prefix 19 followed by the country code, area code, and subscriber number. But that system began to run out of numbers in the 1980s, leading to the adoption of a new "eight-digit" numbering plan on 25 October 1985. On that date, France changed to a system of two zones, one for Paris and the surrounding
Île-de-France and another for the other departments. Outside Paris, the old area code was incorporated into the subscriber's eight-digit number; for Paris, the area code 1 was retained, and a 4 was prefixed to seven-digit numbers, meaning that a subscriber's number could begin with 40, for example 4056 1873. For numbers in the
Île-de-France surrounding Paris, the old codes 3x and 6x joined the old seven-digit numbers to become eight-digit numbers and were assigned to the Paris area code 1, with the trunk prefix 16 required for calls from the rest of France, followed by the area code 1 for Paris and the eight-digit number. To call the rest of France from
Paris, however, the trunk prefix 16 had to be dialed before the eight-digit number. On 18 October 1996, this changed to the present "ten-digit" system (including the default one-digit leading trunk code 0), in which each call is dialed using all ten digits, this national scheme being also extended to cover Overseas France in a single area. Area codes were abolished, and since then France has had a closed numbering plan, where all local or national calls require dialing the leading trunk code. Following liberalisation in 1998, subscribers (first deployed on land lines and rapidly extended to all mobile networks) could access different carriers by replacing the leading trunk code 0 (omitted from numbers when called from outside France) with another carrier selection code (one digit from 2 to 9, or four digits 16xx). For example, Cegetel required subscribers to dial 7; e.g., Paris 71 xx xx xx xx, instead of 01 xx xx xx xx. Similarly, the international access code using Cegetel would be 70 instead of 00 by replacing the first 0. Since then, the carrier selection code still exists, but carrier preselection (and number portability) is offered by default on all subscriber lines, and the one-digit carrier selection is rarely used. In addition, several important national operators merged, and the four-digit carrier selection only persists for subscribers of various international service providers (most of them for mobile telephony, but these carrier selection prefixes are often dialed internally by a terminal device and callers don't need to care about it, unless they want to select carriers for different services). Additionally, call fees no longer depend on distance in the French numbering plan, so carrier selection is used only for international calls. The 09 prefix was introduced for non-geographic numbers and special services in September 2006 and older numbers such as 08 7x xx xx xx (used for VoIP in Internet boxes) were replaced by 09 5x xx xx xx (telephone service offered by
Internet service provider Free, later followed by other French ISPs). The national information service reached by dialing "12" was closed in 2005, leading to the creation of numerous new information services reached by dialing 118 xxx. They cost €3 per call, plus €3 per minute.
Defunct prefixes Changed in 1996: • 16 - Long distance prefix - Changed to: 0 • 19 - International prefix - Changed to: 00 The second dial tone was also removed. Dialing procedures now reflect
ETSI and
ITU recommendations.
Andorra and Monaco Until 17 December 1994,
Andorra formed part of the French numbering plan, with calls from France requiring the prefix 628, (or 16 628 from
Paris). except from Spain, which were made using the prefix 9738. On that date, the
principality adopted the
telephone country code 376. Consequently, all calls from France to Andorra had to be dialled in international format, using the prefix 19 376. This was later changed to 00 376, along with the second French reform of 1996 to the newer "ten-digit" plan. On 21 June 1996,
Monaco similarly adopted its own
telephone country code 377, replacing access from France (33 93). == See also ==