Randalator: What's your issue with ATMs?
Bit of background information:
France you only get to the ATMs if you do have a working card, the room is controlled with video feed for various reasons, one of them do disallow tempering of the ATMs.
Further the French ATMs are far more secure as the German ones. I did here from 2 persons around here that they hit a tempered ATM (both were lucky enough to recognise it), so I decided I will not take any chance. I have seen a report that some of those tempered ATMs is hardly recognizable as a tempered one. Plus as I still have the envelope unopened with the PIN I can always proof that I never used it. Again thanks to our banks who blame you if your card is getting stolen and despite their bad systems, which allows the card to be used without proper checking to withdraw money.
I don't even have a signature one my bank-card, only via ID. Call me paranoid, but it prevented me from having bad experiences ;)
Themken: Over here, the bank teller would not even have any cash to hand over as the banks do not handle cash. You use the cash machines for that. No idea how shops get more change when they need it.
Funny that you mentioned it, shops have to pay a fee to get coins exchanged )at least around here)