Wahoo!
After two months of loyal service to the colleges of Jean Vigo and Evariste Galois they decided to reward me monetarily. Overnight my French bank account shot up from just about 56euros to almost 1400! I was very happy to see that I now had a bit of a buffer zone in my account. It wasn't quite as much as was advertised but we are currently getting to the bottom that. I am going to try to rely solely on my French paychecks and see if I can manage from here on out without using US dollars. Wish me "bonne chance!"