Help is needed, and found in the ancient trade of ecrivain public or public scribe.
Traditionally, scribes have served the needy illiterate, but these days they tend to help clients through the maze of dealing with France's 5 million bureaucrats. It's a shame because that's what I like best. He is the only scribe in St. Germain des Pres, the famed literary quarter a tome's throw from the Academie Francaise. His clientele, he says, is very classy, and he receives them at his computer keyboard in a basement prettily decorated with fake flowers and seven cats. In addition to writing the usual letters, he edits for neighborhood publishing houses, ghosts for businessmen who have to write articles and helps out on theses, memoirs and company reports.