Guidelines to beginners for buying stocks and bonds online (in euro)?

I would like to find simple guidelines for total beginners to understand better the investment possibilities for privite persons. i prefer to invest small amounts first (not more than 300 euro) to get experience and to see how the system is working. i would like to start investing though my french account in euro.i wonder whether i can do it on my own or whether i need an official broker to do it and what the nice sites are to learn more about the opportunities in this area.
Answer
1. define the risk you are willing to take. 2. start small with investment funds (not stock market). 3. buy the funds accordingly to the risk you defined, their defined risk, their current evolution (note: past revenues are not a garantee of future revenues); 4. get to know better the market.. 5. after you manage to invest in confort in investment funds and if you want bigger risk then start to look at the stock market.. by then you should already have realized a couple things about the evolution of markets. my 2 cents.