Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

Chirac has presided over a range of fairly high profile controversies since beginning with his authorisation of the nuclear tests in the Pacific just after his election in 1995. Just two years later he tried to manipulate the electoral process by dissolving the parliament and forcing an election at an opportune time for his own party though, such was the opposition to this action, he ended up weakening his powerbase.

Unexpectedly facing Le Pen in the second round of elections in 2002, he naturally had a landslide victory. The defeat of the European constitution in 2005 was quite a blow both to him and other nations in Europe. As with the nuclear tests in 1995, he typically followed solely the interests of France in opposing the war with Iraq. Also seemingly typical of French politicians, he withdrew the proposed First Employment Contract (Contrat Première Embauche or CPE) in the face of widespread student protests against this move to make it easier to both hire and fire young people.

On the whole, I think he will be remembered as one of the most typically French politicians. He seemed to consider only the interests of France abroad and followed (on the whole) the desires (if not always the needs) of the French people within the country.

Although it seemed likely that he would lose the election had he stood this time around, he seemed to recognise in his speech that France needs a different type of leadership in the future, one that begins to consider more completely France’s place in Europe and that takes a firmer stand on necessary policy changes.

Belfast has always had a slightly rural feel about it. The countryside isn’t far from anywhere in the town and you can almost always see the green fields that surround the city. In other ways too it has never been terribly cosmopolitan with nightlife being relatively quiet for many years.

All that is changing though. For a number of years the nightlife has been getting considerably more lively and the city centre remains busy in the evenings these days with the increasing number of nightclubs and the like opening around the city not to mention the massive increase in city centre apartments that have been constructed over the last ten years or so.

A striking example that I found in my recent trip was the appearance of Anna Lo’s face on an election poster. You’d never have seen her before not because there was discrimination against non-whites here but rather because there weren’t any non-whites. Yet another welcome indication of the settling in of peace.

We covered the very simplest case last week ie that of Europeans from established European countries intending to work. This case is almost as simple but does involve some paperwork.

If your spouse is from a country that’s been in Europe for less than four years then transitional arrangements may apply and will almost certainly be applied if there are any as France really loves documentation.

As before if you have “sufficient resources” (generally 1000‚€ a month or more) you are treated as though you were intending to work.

If you are from a country which requires a visa to enter France, then you still need to get it from the country in which you are living. However, they aren’t allowed to charge you for it and they can’t refuse it either. Once you reach France, you should go along to the mayor’s office (mairie) in your commun and apply for a Carte de Séjour Européenne. You’ll need to bring along your passport, that of your European spouse and proof of relationship (eg marriage certificate) plus two passport photos of you (none are required for the European citizen). Within 90 days, you should receive the Carte de Séjour (residence permit). These are the only documents that they are allowed to ask for but in practice they will often ask for considerably more; if this is the case you aren’t required to provide them but will probably need to quote the European law. You can get the same permit for the parents, grandparents, children or grandchildren of either you or your spouse regardless of their nationality. Before you bother to go down this path, bear in mind that if you have parents or grandparents who were Irish or born in Ireland pre-1922 or the Republic of Ireland after that then you are Irish and can therefore apply for an Irish passport which in turn means that you come under the simple case covered last week.

This section is one that doesn’t apply if you are French (unless you have dual/multiple nationalities) as the European law being used only applies if you are moving countries. Actually, in theory you could apply if you had lived in a European country other than France: there are always exceptions in immigration law.

Next week we’ll venture out into the more complex circumstances that can arise.

Although MI6 was less than pleased (to put it mildly) when Bond zoomed right past their real-life headquarters on the opening sequence of “The World is Not Enough”, just a few years later and we find MI5, their internal security counterparts, advertising for spies on the Internet and indeed even MI6 now feature a nice photo of said headquarters on their own site. Of course, “we” have agents (or, rather, Mobile Surveillance Officers), it is “they” who have spies.

In days gone by, recruitment was by way of the old boy network. It was more than enough for X to say that you were a “reliable chap” for you to find yourself asked by someone in “the Service” to help your country. Unfortunately, the days when the British Empire was mainly up against the Soviet Union are long since gone and the threat is much more from the likes of Muslim extremists these days. The old boy network certainly never included ethnic minorities and, for that matter, rarely extended outside the public school network so they need to look for new ways to find people who can infiltrate the organisations posing the present-day threats.

The more paranoid of you will realise that this entry has so many trigger words that my ‘lil ‘ole blog is sure to attract the interest of MI5. Given the “request” by MI5 some years back to have their routers installed directly on the networks of all UK based ISPs, the paranoid amongst you are more than likely right this time. Sadly, I just can’t see MI5 appearing on the site stats somehow but hopefully I’ll keep one of the chaps or chappettes in ****** ***** or  **** amused now and again in the future.

I, of course, have shot myself down re applying by way of this post as I’m fairly sure that posting such discussions fall well outside of the guidelines they quote, namely “Discretion is important to the Service, so please only discuss this application with your partner and/or immediate family.”. Although, for the true conspiracy theorists, I could be an MI5 plant and double-bluffing the lot of you!

Seriously though, if you’re British and have lived in the UK for most of your life, it is one of the ways that you could help to defend the British way of life in a very constructive, if usually unseen way.