Emergency Contact Numbers

I promise, I'll stop writing about making phone calls in/from France after this one. It's just been the bane of my financial existence since I stepped foot in this country, so I think I'm exorcising a bit.


The following are some contact numbers that I thought might be handy, centralised:

NATIONAL EMERGENCY NUMBERS IN FRANCE
Ambulance - dial 15
Police - dial 17
Fire - dial 18
Calling from a mobile for all emergencies - dial 112
Taken from Expatica click on the link for other tips and useful phrases to use in cases of emergency.

Here is a link to some other useful numbers local in Lyon: in French and in English (there's even a Cannabis helpline!)

CANADIAN CONSULATE IN LYON
21, rue Bourgelat
69002 Lyon
Tel.: 04.72.77.64.07
Fax: 04.72.77.65.09
Monday to Friday: 9:30-12:30
E-mail: consulatcanadalyon@wanadoo.fr
Link to Canadian embassy in France
Map with directions

EMERGENCY CONTACT NUMBERS - financial
Before you leave, ask your bank if they have an international toll-free number (these numbers have one extra digit to the traditional). All the banks usually tell you to call one of their locals collect, but collect calling in France (faire un appel en PCV) is convoluted (surprise) and dialing 'zero' does not get you the operator*.

In case you lose your credit card or have a credit emergency while abroad, click on the following links to look up the toll free number in, what appears to be, any country in the world:
Mastercard
Visa
What's the sense in paying for long distance calls that have to be made?
Note: The operators for Mastercard and Visa internationals can transfer your call to your main issuer in Canada**.


* In any case, this is, apparently, how you make a collect call in France:
dial 0800 99 00 + the code of the country you are trying to reach. (I haven't tried making a collect call yet).

**As an aside, maybe you'd like to try and see how many times your call can be transferred to save you an extra call to your bank. Some agents at the call centres will tell you that they're "not equipped" to transfer calls. Acknowledging that all banks may differ in their operations, when I worked at a credit card call centre, the only thing that the phones weren't equipped with was a will.