Well ow11, we're in the same boat unfortunately. Not knowing the language (and not finding any salespeople who admitted to speaking English) I let a friend select my SIM card and just bought it, since I was there for only two weeks. But you can see the options on SIM cards here (if you can understand French or run it through babelfish):
http://www.carte.bouyguestelecom.fr/...ueformules.htm
I never got SMS or data to work, so I'm not sure if there is a way to check your balances other than calling them.
Good luck.