Sheila Wilson Mar 30, 2010:

Why don't you post, Tony Then I can agree that a "lettre suivie" can be bought in advance for a fixed fee ie préaffranchi. You can't get an "accusé de réception" but I'm sure this would be understood by French-speakers reading about a service in the English-speaking world.

Tony M Mar 30, 2010:

'recorded delivery' Is similar to 'Lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception' in France — it's a simpler service than 'registered letter', with no insurance, for sending non-value items like documents where you simply want a record of delivery. As such, I don't think it has a direct equivalent in France.

However, I don't think 'livraison' is correct here; don't we talk about 'distribution' for courrier? This is probably a bit nearer to 'lettre suivie', where there is a record of its delivery and it has to be signed for.

I'd have thought something along the lines of 'lettre suivie avec remise contre signature', but I'll leave it to one of our French native-speaker colleagues to come up with the correct term...

As for the 'prepaid' bit, that simply reflects the rather odd system in the UK where it is possible to make the recipient pay the postage at the time of delivery; again, I don't think there is an equivalent system in FR, but I suppose it would be something like 'préaffranchi'?