Foreign Perspectives

Then people say that it must be safe because the electicity company quotes their details for payments so how come someone hasn’t cleaned them out by now? They haven’t because they quote the number of their collection account and collection accounts reject electronic withdrawals.

Since a small business doesn’t have the option of a collection account the safest thing to do is to quote a savings account number as you can’t withdraw money electronically from a savings account.

In the English speaking world the two are quite separate. India clearly isn’t an Anglo-saxon culture yet they speak English and even Hong-Kong remained very much a Chinese culture even when it was a British colony. Yet, the French would seemingly argue that both India and Hong-Kong are Anglo-Saxon.

Even the French world has examples of the separation these days. France24 put out a full English-language news service yet it is still quite clearly a French channel. Perhaps the most interesting example though is of the TV series Nikita which although based on the French film of the same name was made entirely in English yet still came across as a French series.

The other thing that I found odd was that they seemingly considered all English speakers to be Anglo-Saxon which I suppose is reasonable if you start with the premise that language and culture aren’t separable.

It was also a little strange to come across a group of people from a fairly major language grouping who were so defensive about their language. You’dt from a group speaking very much a minority language, not from speakers of one of the top 15 world languages. For instance, they have a law that says all government services must of be offered in French. OK, it’s France so you would expect them to be in French but why should that require a law?

This section also applies to you if you are French and if you have dual/multiple nationalities so long as one of those nationalities is European.

If this applies to you and all your family, then you just need to come to France and there are no documentation requirements at all beyond those which a French citizen would need to meet. In practical terms, the French must treat you as though you were French and had always been French. This doesn’t mean that there is no paperwork to be done though! For example, if you up a business then you will need to register that business just as a French person would have to (see our section on employment for more information on this).

Although the heading says “intending to work”, you can also move on the same basis if you are receiving a pension or other income sufficient to support yourself and your family. In practical terms, this means an income of something like 1000‚€ or more per month but that’s largely irrelevant as the French don’t seem to apply this criteria.

If you’re in one of the new European countries for which transitional arrangements apply. In practical terms, so long as you have a job lined up there doesn’t seem to be any distinction between the new and the old European countries.

Fortunately, this section covers 90% or more of the immigrants to France from other European countries. In our next edition, we’ll look at another simple case which covers those who aren’t European but have a European spouse.