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WA and other apps will work with local charges if you use a portable wifi unit with a local sim card.
Bit of messing around but it works.

I see, I would need to get an unlocked portable wifi unit, probably one doing 3G and 4G. The difficult part would be to get the local sim card since I don't know anything about these in France. Like you said, not that straight forward and still have to fork a few dozen bucks ($100?) at least. Then I probably won't use it again. But I'll keep that in mind if I don't find anything better and we're that desperate about staying connected for 2 weeks.
Thanks!

Better than average chance you can buy one at less money and stick your own sim card in it, but the above is an option.
Just have a google and you're likely to find others, maybe cheaper, or even ones for sale from Orange or whoever.

I have no clue what sort of electronics goodies shops they have in the US, but most of the world has places you can buy unlocked MiFi units at a very reasonable price, mostly made in china. I have a small collection of the things but only use one at the moment. They cane free with all sorts of stuff so I just dump them in a drawer and wait until they come in handy. One USB stick modem I have supports calls and SMS from a PC.

I would get your phone unlocked in the USA, then get a card. It's pay as you. Calls to America cost €0.01 cent / €0.07 per min and SMS €0.15. You can also buy bundles with inclusive minutes, just choose what best suits you.

That's the easiest and cheapest way but of course, you will have a new number.

Thank you both for the advices. I'll check these options out. Ideally, we'd like to keep our numbers for family and business calls during our trip to Europe.

My experience is that Verizon doesn't work, though they tell you it does with their euro package (something like that) - and their tech support is in French or Italian, which may be of limited value.

T-mobile (owned by Deutsche Telecom) works very well and at no additional charge - for 45 days at which you will be instructed to select a european carrier.

The issue is that the world uses the GSM except for Verizon and I think, Sprint, which use CDMA. 

You can swap out the SIM card in your phone if it isn't locked - SIM cards are widely available all over Europe and they are cheap. But you won't have your home phone number - until you get home and switch back to the other SIM card. Just email people you want to stay in touch with and give them your temp number.