Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Relocating’ Category

As expected, James would rather have stayed in the original class. Every day, of the week he wanted to go to school. In fact he could hardly wait to get there, at least until last Thursday when they moved him to the class with the 2 and 3 year olds.

Since we’ve applied for the European Residence Permit over two years ago and have yet to receive it, despite there being a legal obligation on the French authorities to provide it within 90 days, Wendy’s proposed that we use the Winter months to call their bluff.

To date, they have been coming out with phrases along the lines of “European law doesn’t apply in France” and “we don’t issue European Residence Permits” and consistently insisting on us providing the documentation required for them to issue a normal residence permit.

Now this causes a few little problems in that we’re not really here all that long and don’t have a number of key items that would be required to actually qualify for a normal residence permit. So for instance, we couldn’t provide proof that we had adequate resources in 2004, and Wendy still can’t provide proof of residence.

Anyway, as we’re usually not too busy over the Winter, Wendy suggested that we play along with them and see what they do when they conclude that she doesn’t qualify for a normal residence permit. As far as we’re aware, they should give her 90 days to leave the country (“or else”) although as we’ve been here over two years already they might reduce that somewhat. At any rate, we’re definitely going to ignore whatever time limit they might place on her stay here so I can’t see how they can avoid issuing a deportation order.

However, this will pose some difficulties for them in that she’s the parent of two European children who are, of course, here quite legally. Under European law, the Human Rights Convention, Rights of the Child, etc., they can’t legally separate a child from its parents, although perhaps they will argue they’re here legally under European law which doesn’t apply in France…. However, one of the children is French and I imagine that even French law would have something to say about deporting the parent of a 2 year old French child.

Since we’ve been here we’ve been approached by three different TV production units about filming us for one reason or another so when the deportation order arrives Wendy’s planning on calling them along with Australian TV, the local papers, etc. so I’m sure it would be “interesting” to see someone turning up and having to openly state for the news that European law didn’t apply in France and, no, they didn’t care about any rights that a 2 year old might have to be with his mother.

Where would they deport her to is also an interesting question. Should it be Turkey? After all, that was the last country which she was in legally, even if it was on holiday. What about the UK? Well, that’s a problem because as soon as she is pushed off the plane, she can quite legally come straight back to France. Australia? Well, it’s anyones’ guess.

The transition year from the tax system of one country to another can cause a number of peculiarities in payment of tax and social security as you’d expect.

For a start, the UK tax year runs from April to March whereas the French one is from January to December and both systems operate on the basis that you’re taxed by tax year. That’s relatively easy to resolve in practice as each country seems to apportion the tax according to when you made the move. What’s much more complex is the social security and healthcare arrangements.

We told the Inland Revenue in March 2004 that we were moving to France in April of that year. In fact, we told them twice in March as we wanted to register as overseas landlords (we’re renting out our UK property). Then we told them twice more in April that we had moved and indeed started getting letters directly to our French address. Snag is, that they continued to send letters to our UK address, my parents address and even my work address!

As you can imagine, we were quite busy for the first few months so it was June before we thought we’d have another go and told them yet again that we were here, twice more in fact. Finally on the seventh attempt they decided that we owed them over £500 as we’d not told them that we’d moved!

How come?

Well, the seven times that we told them we moved break down as follows:

1. in March and April 2004 we told our own Inland Revenue tax office;

2. in March and April 2004 we told the Inland Revenue “landlord abroad” people;

3. in June we told the Inland Revenue Child Benefit people; and

4. in June and July we told the Inland Revenue Tax Credit people.

In fact, we originally thought that telling just our own tax office was enough in that they use the same reference number for us as all the other Inland Revenue offices. So it should, but the problem is that the other offices were just lumped into Inland Revenue piecemeal within the last few years and integration between them is virtually zero at the moment. Even so, you’d think that telling our own offce twice was enough but in fact they still send letters to me at our previous address, my former work address and here, seemingly at random and it’s been over two years now since we made the move.

After yet another “pay up or else” notice in 2005, we wrote them a letter running through the sheer number of times we’d told them (and legally, we only needed to tell them once!). That at least resulted, eventually, in an apology and confirmation that we don’t owe them anything.

And yet, within the last week Wendy received another “pay up or else” letter. Funnilly enough the very same envelope contained a letter saying that she didn’t owe anything. Both signed by the same person!

Still, at least they’ve worked out that she’s living here. Where they sent my copy of the same letter (they always come in pairs) is anyones’ guess.

We were fully prepared for it to feel warm and indeed hot down here in the Summer.

“We thought that English people couldn’t cook French food but this is fantastic”.That’s typical of the comments we received when we hosted a reveillon break for a French family. The interesting aspect of that is that the comment was first made as the family were eating a roast turkey dinner which we considered typically English! In fact, although they had chosen all the dishes that we served over the three days all but one were what you would think was an English dish rather than a French one. Even the “French” one (duck, of course) isn’t something that’s completely unknown in the UK. Whilst the French are known for undercooking food, we found that this group not only didn’t complain that we had “overcooked” (ie cooked to UK standards) but complimented us on how well the food was done. As in other things, it may be that the French don’t actually like the food as cooked but just take it because that’s how it’s given to them.The undercooking is pretty much across the board and food hygiene laws in the UK would result in a number of the caffeteria type restaurants being closed if those laws were applied in France. We all know about the virtual impossibility of getting a steak “well done” in France (which seems to mean “not quite raw” to them) but consider how dangerous it is to undercook the likes of poultry.

Visiting the local cash and carry is an eye-opener in terms of French cuisine. Almost all of the local restaurants only serve food that’s available in a pre-prepared form in the local cash and carry. Consequently, the “French food” that the English can’t prepare is 90% reheated meals from the cash and carry and, of course, the menus are just about identical. In fact, there seem to be only three exceptions to this approach to French restaurant “cooking” locally: one haute cuisine French restaurant (with, of course, prices to match) and two owned by foreigners.

The snag is that this approach to food preparation changes the expectations of people. We had one very bad review because it took 30 minutes to get the meal on the table when they were used to having the meals on the table within 5 to 10 minutes. Of course, that 5 to 10 minutes is taken up with lifting the meal out of the freezer, heating it up in the microwave and emptying the contents onto a plate whereas our 30 minutes is made up of preparing the food and cooking it. Related to this, it can be quite rare for a French person to know how to read a menu because they’re used to reading the standard dishes listed on the “cash & carry” menus used by the bulk of restaurants here.

This “cash & carry” approach to menus combined with the attitude that nobody but the French can reheat meals means that the French, on the whole, are very unadventurous with what they will eat. If it’s spicy, it’s always refused so it was no great surprise that the “Nigel & Nippy” Indian restaurant folded as the locals won’t even try meals that look like they might be spicy. Net effect of this is that Indian restaurants have to tone down their offerings considerably and offer a very bland selection compared to what you’d get in the UK. Not only that, but they need to adjust their spices to those that the French know about so seem to stick to the curry powder from the cash & carry. What are the “French” dishes though? Well, for the most part they are the same as you find in the freezer sections of supermarkets in the UK. There are other things, of course, such as the local cuisine in the various regions which, in our area, is cassollet which is effectively tinned stew although since it’s considered a regional dish the price is correspondingly inflated.

So, basically, French food is the same as reheated and undercooked English food, less any spices.