Where would you take an abandoned kid in France?

I'm not in France but in the EU. You could take the kid to social services if you knew where the office was but not every citizen would. It would depend how much they cared if the kid was scared. Going to social services wouldn't be as scary for a kid as going to the police. So, if they cared, they could go online and find the address for local social serves (usually in the same building or complex where people go to deal with pensions and other things that everyone uses, so most people could find it without too much trouble). But you could also go to the police and they would take the kid to social services.

If I, an American, was in France and found a lost kid, I'd call the police. I wouldn't know anything about their social services or what their protocol was. Is the emergency number in France 999 like in Britain?

It would be really weird because I speak almost no French. "Er, parlez-vous English? No? Hm. La politz, um, por favor. No... politz sil vous ple. Je discover un bebe. Alorz!"

Probably incomprehensible, poor dispatcher!

If I was here at home, I'd still probably call the police because I don't know the phone number of social services while I do know 911 by heart. I wouldn't want to put the kid in my car and drive hir anywhere, unless we were really out in the boonies with no cell reception.

What do you mean by abandoned? You know that the parents or guardians or whatever have gone off and left this child? How do you know the child isn't just lost? How old is the child?

Whatever the answers, the sensible thing to do would be to go to the police. They will know what to do, and generally try to not terrify small children.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

It would be really weird because I speak almost no French. "Er, parlez-vous English? No? Hm. La politz, um, por favor. No... politz sil vous ple. Je discover un bebe. Alorz!"

Probably incomprehensible, poor dispatcher!

Click to expand...

First dispatcher: Got some American on the line, claims he's 'discovered' a baby...
Second dispatcher: Probably means he's just discovered the wife's pregnant. Why call us?
First dispatcher: Maybe it's not his baby and he's going to do something drastic?
Second dispatcher: No, why would he call first... OMG she's having the baby right now!
(Paramedics dispatched)

I imagine the Parisian 999 people have English-speakers on tap to stop this sort of scenario. Our 911 has multi-lingual staff.

I am not from France, but I lived for 25 years in Switzerland, which in the immediate neighborhood. If I found an abandoned or lost child, I would take him or her to the police.

The police.

Nearest Lost and Found?

The police?

My sister says the police in French are very friendly, extremely polite and most are quite handsome.

Yeah, the police.