Description
Emmaüs Connect is a French association that helps people who struggle with digital tools: using a phone or a computer, online paperwork, job hunting, and access to rights and health care. A member of the Emmaüs movement, it has worked since 2013 and says it has helped more than 250,000 people.
Its support courses are free. People referred by a social organisation, with a referral voucher, can also buy prepaid phone and internet top-ups at solidarity prices, supplied with SFR, and refurbished basic phones, smartphones and laptops when donated stock allows. The association says its offers cost on average four times less than on the market, and it has handed out more than 1.5 million top-ups. The devices come from donations and are refurbished by local partners through its LaCollecte.tech network, since it has no workshop of its own.
It works in 19 areas, with spaces in about ten cities including Paris, Saint-Denis, Lille, Roubaix, Lyon, Grenoble, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, and through some 700 partner “Relais numériques”. A training body since 2015, it has trained more than 18,000 social workers and volunteers. SFR and its foundation are among its main partners, along with public bodies and other foundations.
Strengths
- Free digital support, from first steps on a phone to online paperwork.
- Top-ups and refurbished devices at prices the association puts at a quarter of the market.
- Donated devices get a second life, and 700 partner places pass on the support.
Weaknesses
- The solidarity offers require a referral voucher from a social organisation.
- Devices only when stock allows, no phone plans of its own, and no prices published on the website.
- Several of the 19 areas have no space of their own, only workshops in partner organisations.
Who it is for
People who struggle with online procedures and are followed by a social worker, and who need help as much as a phone or a computer.
Sources
- Emmaüs Connect: L’association, Notre action, Offres solidaires, Nous trouver, Nos partenaires, checked November 2026
- Selectra: Emmaüs Connect et SFR, accès Internet et mobile à prix solidaire (July 2025)