Helsinki : before going
To react or participate, contact : Frederic Dervin

Visa, working, passports:

Finland is part of the european union since 1995 and owning a simple ID card is enought to enter the countrty. After a three mont stay, you will have to get to the closest police station to ask for a stay permit. Get there with an ID, two pictures, a work contract and money. Visa is not required for an european citizen.

To get official informations:
Finland ambassy in France
1, place de Finlande, 75007 Paris
Tél. 0144181920 Fax 0145555157

 http://pages.pratique.fr/~finlande/

Getting ready for your stay

Finnish. You shoul dknow that Finnish people doesn't all speak french. Most of them speak english and suedish. It's then vital to learn either english or finnish before your stay. This will get your life easier belive me!
Finnish courses are available at those addresses:

L’Institut finlandais à Paris, 60 rue des écoles, 75005 Paris
Site :http://www.riihimaki.hamkk.fi/~nismar/institut/mainfr.htm
email : institut@pratique.fr

Télé 3/ Sorbonne nouvelle, 13, rue Santeuil, 75231 Paris Cedex 05
Site: http://www.tele3.net
email : tele3@univ-paris.fr

On the Internet :

 Finnish dictionnary: http://www.mobile.fi/-db.htm (finnish-english-finnish)
Finnish page: http://www.hut.fi/~jkorpela/Finnish.html
If finnish scares you … read the page of Hannele Branch http://www.vn.fi/vn/um/finfo/english/finnlang.html

books :

There are hundreds of books to learn the finnish language. It's important to choose the method that suits you and to work on the grammar.  Have a look on: http://www.lysator.liu.se/(ns)/nordic/scn/faq48.html#4.8
Most of these books are available in the large Parisian libraries.

Transportations

You will find here useful links to transportation means:

 http://finnair.com
http://www.airfrance.fr
http://www.sas.se
http://www.silja.com
http://www.vikingline.se Departure from Stockholm at Turku-Åbo or Helsinki. A good and nice mean to taste the finnish culture (lenght of the trip : between 16 and 20 heures).
http://www.eurolines.fr Paris-Lille-Helsinki line (this option is reserved to those who like buses…)
email : infos@eurolines.fr