Currency: Euro (EUR; symbol €). One euro is equivalent to 100 cents.

Notes are in denominations of €500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10 and 5. Banknotes of 500, 200 are rarely seen and most shops would be wary of accepting them, and even 100 euro banknote is not that common but in use.
Coins are in denominations of €2 and 1, and 50, 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1 cents.

Businesses are prohibited from accepting foreign currency by law, but some currency exchange offices are present within some first-class hotels which are authorised to exchange foreign currency. 

In general there are exchange boots in the centres of towns or money could be exchanged at the bank. Banking hours change from one place to another and from one bank to another. As a general guideline: Mon-Sat 9 am till 12/13 pm and 14002 pm to 5 pm. Some banks are close on Mondays and some are open on Saturdays. Banks stay open only half a day (till 12 o'clock) on the day before a bank holiday and may also close for all or part of the day after, but iti s less llikely.

Credit cards (called carte bleu in French) like American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa are widely accepted and so are Traveller's cheques.

Frech credit cards all have a chip and payment is accepted after digiting a secret code for validation of the payment request, rarely a signature of the payment receipt is required when using this type of card.