Foreign Perspectives

We introduced the various terms involved in the area of visas, residence permits and immigration in our last entry. Now it’s time to take you through the simplest of these.The simplest case of immigration to France is where you are a citizen of one of the established European countries and are coming to France to work as either an employee or for yourself. Established European countries are those that have been in the European Union for more than four years; if it’s been in the union for less than four years then transitional arrangements may apply.

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.