Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Moving to France’ Category

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.

This is one of the most complex areas of our guide as there are so many factors involved including your nationality, marital status, employment status for you, your spouse and your children.

If the simple case described in this section doesn’t cover you, it’s best to start looking into the matter as soon as you can as it can take ages to resolve immigration issues. Broadly speaking there are two basic types of immigration to France: where you are a European and where you aren’t. There’s a third variant where you are a European and your spouse isn’t which we’ll cover separately. Some defniitions are useful at this point:

A “visa” is a permit to enter a country and is usually obtained from the French embassy in your country of residence. There aren’t any French embassies in France itself of course and in some circumstances you may need to point this out to various people in the course of applying for your residence permit. A European Family Permit is a special type of visa issued to spouses and family members of European citizens who are not themselves Europeans.

France is in what’s called the “Schengen Area” which is a group of countries which grant a single visa to enter all of them. So, if you have a Shengen Visa for, say, Belgium then you don’t need an additional visa to enter France because both France and Belgium are in the Schengen Area.

A “residence permit” (“Carte de Séjour) is a document permitting you to live in a country. In some cases this permit may also give you permission to work in that country but you may need a “work permit” to do that.

A “work permit” gives you permission to work in a country. It may be incorporated into your “residence permit”.

Europe has two basic classes of countries: those which are established and those which are subject to transitional arrangements. Established countries are, generally, those which have been in the European Union for four years or more. Newer countries are subject to transitional arrangements in some circumstances, notably in terms of requirements regarding residence permits.

Anyway, next week we’ll be covering the case where you and your family are Europeans.

This is a question that many would like to ask but few are brave enough to actually ask it. The answer is different depending on where in France you choose to live.

If you are aiming for a brit-enclave such as Brittany or the Dordogne, the answer is probably “no” as in those areas it’s quite possible to live within the English-speaking community and to rely on those that make their livelihood supporting it. The only potential difficulty is the mayor’s office (“mairie”) but in the majority of cases they will be able to deal with you in English too. There’s no problem with the likes of tax, electricity and the phone company as all three plus similar outfits have at least one office set up to deal with English speakers (and if there is only one office, that office can deal with you where-ever you are).

Outside the brit-enclaves, it’s a different story and, for the most part, you will need to speak French quite well although it is still possible to deal with tax, electricity, etc. via their English speaking branches. Where you will encounter difficulties is in dealing with the plumber, electrician, school and mayor’s office. Even though we speak degree level French we have found that, for example, some electricians refuse to understand us because they simply don’t want to be bothered working for non-French.

If you aren’t English, then you’ll also find that the French are a good deal more willing to speak English to you. One of the shop local assistants claimed not to speak English for almost three years until they found out that we were from Northern Ireland and Australia when they suddenly became quite fluent English speakers.

So, yes, you could move to France and live here without speaking any French. However, in most cases, you’ll find live that little bit easier as your level of French improves.

This is one aspect of French life that is really simple. This is France, so everything is in French.

If you ask an estate agent for accommodation suggestions for a house hunting trip, they will almost always suggest a hotel in the town that their office is in.