iPad and French sim cards?

Yes, you can get a local sim.

Can't comment on the providers though

As far as I know only SFR offers a real pre-paid sim that does not require a French bank account but works on top up vouchers

I'm just back from France and trying to do the same thing.

As one of the other respondents said, SFR is the only one I could find that was truly pre-paid and could be sold to anyone. I think it was €9.90 for the card which gave you 3 days connectivity and then you had to pay €6 a day to add extra days. I didn't try it so I can't say anything about setup experiences and whether you can get it working without having a machine with iTunes with you.

Orange and SFR were generally unhelpful. They seemed surprised that I could expect to be able to buy a pre-paid card without being a French resident with a French bank account and various identity cards.

Also of note was the fact that, whilst there are numerous WiFi connections around the place, most of the ones that call themselves 'free' are really just free for use by existing subscribers to SFR. Indeed the only free wifi I found in my visit was within the Airport.

I'm sure there's a French joke in there somewhere.

I am off to France tomorrow and was going to look for this also - though I do have a french Bank account.

I'll let you know how i get on.

If you get stuck head for the nearest MacDonalds - Free WiFi in pretty much all of them. Quite a few of Autoroute service stations also have free WiFi now.

Paul

I assume you're in France by now and good luck finding an SFR store (alternative retailer is FNAC) which has a card in stock. I tried Orange, I have a French bank account and debit card but they won't allow me to open an account without a proper residence contract.

Go to FNAC and get the Apple iPad "Kit 3G+ Pret a surfer".

It costs 9 euro 90 cents and is good for 3 days and additional days costs 6 euro (no address or bank account required).

You get a SIM card and replace your AT&T SIM. You do need a computer with iTunes to activate it (I think it downloads the carrier software).

http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/ipad.jspe

I went to SFR first, but in my town they had run out. At FNAC, they can usually speak some English too. The link above is from the SFR web site. It was very convenient and a great way for me to use my iPad while in France.

Bon Voyage!

You don't need a computer to activate the prepaid SFR mini-sim card in your iPad. Just change the APN setting so that you can surf the internet with the card. Any SFR shop can tell you what this setting is.

If you stay longer it could be cheaper to buy a new mico-sim card starter pack than to recharge your existing card.