pomme

Norman wrote "For my part I can claim to have accurately predicted that those of us with a carte de séjour would simply have to exchange it for the new document; something that caused a lot of debate on here a while back." He should have said "titulaires de la carte de séjour permanent" RIFT have now published another note for those with less than 5 years residence, including those with an initial carte de séjour. Even if you already hold an initial carte de séjour as an EU citizen, there is no automatic exchange for a new card - you have to make a complete new application for a new status. https://remaininfrance.blogspot.com/2019/04/no-deal-decree-and-nitty-gritty-of-your_4.html

Norman, do you know anything about RIFT? They are not like Connexion, who are well known for inaccurate information. RIFT (and British in Europe) have been lobbying and putting to evidence to UK parliamentary committees and meeting with the French Government on behalf of those of us in France https://www.remaininfrance.org/some-of-our-work.html They are publishing papers which provide useful information to those of us in France who are less able st understanding all the nuances of any French legislation on Brexit and other citizen-related matters. You are quite welcome to ignore anything they produce, but perhaps, if you have superior knowledge, you should offer to assist them so as to help us all?

Rather than the mess above it is easier to read The Remain in France Together summary of this legislation https://remaininfrance.blogspot.com/2019/04/no-deal-decree-and-nitty-gritty-of-your.html

[quote user="woolybanana"] These mails all arrive in my google mail junk folder and are quickly eliminated. Judging by the format they all seem to come from the same source. But deleting them is a boring chore, so can anyone suggest a means of getting rid of them permanently, even if it means sending them to the above named person?[/quote] If you select one of the e-mails you can go to More (above the messages) and select Filter messages like these. You can create a filter to identify the e-mails in various ways. The next page allows you to Delete them. The filter will run automatically on all new e-mails.

Société Protectrice des Animaux (SPA) | association protection animale https://www.la-spa.fr/

I hadn't previously noticed that possibility mentioned elsewhere. If that is the case then I should get a reply stating the decision timetable rather than the continuing pending, but to indication of possible action, reply.

I'd still not had any reply to my query apart from "Votre message est conservé dans l'historique de votre dossier. Le cas échéant, le service sera certainement avisé par sa direction des suites à donner à ces réclamations" and then I found this web page https://rhexpat-avocats.com/fr/loi-de-financement-de-la-securite-sociale-pour-2019-prelevements-sociaux-sur-les-revenus-du-capital/ which indicated the exoneration from CSG/CRDS for those with an S1 etc in the 2019 Social Security Financing law. So this week I wrote again quoting that web page and stating it was now over three months since my original query. I have now received a reply "votre message a été communiqué ce jour au service des affaires juridiques et du contentieux de la Direction départementale des Finances Publiques" So I assume there will now decision?

Just do a search for that phrase and you will get a clear explanation e.g. https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/faq/5120-releve-d-information-assurance-auto It is a specific statement you obtain from your insurer containing - date de souscription du contrat ; - numéro d'immatriculation du véhicule ; nom, prénom, date de naissance, numéro et date de délivrance du permis de conduire du souscripteur et de chacun des conducteurs désignés dans le contrat ; - nombre, nature, date de survenance et conducteur responsable des sinistres survenus au cours des cinq périodes annuelles précédant l'établissement du relevé d'informations, ainsi que la part de responsabilité retenue ; - coefficient de réduction-majoration (coefficient bonus-malus) appliqué à la dernière échéance annuelle ; - date à laquelle les informations ci-dessus ont été arrêtées.

You could take a photo of it with your iPad and post that.

Has anyone else had refunds yet or is it just a decision in one department? Has anyone seen any more reports or official documentation on this?

Minnie wrote: "Finally sorted it. The problem we were having was that every photo we took/had kept on coming back that oh had no definite head outline and might not be acceptable. Eventually, last evening, we visited a friend who is an ace photographer. He managed to get a result after a couple of hours and the application was quickly accepted. Posted old passport back just before lunch. Thanks all for your contributions - much appreciated." If you have a smartphone there is a good free French app for taking approved photographs https://www.identite.photos The website is available in various languages. The program has various instructions to help you create an acceptable set of photos. You use it to get the head framed in the correct position and you can then take as many as photos you want until you get a photo that looks like you think you look! You have several choices ranging from just printing it off yourself (free), to sending it off, getting it confirmed for official documents and getting a print of four images sent back (6€).

Perhaps you could sell/donate your car to someone permanently resident in France and get them to insure it? With the permission of the owner, wouldn't your UK licence + International Driving Licence allow you to drive it legally?

The Nissan Micra is built by Renault in their Flins factory on the same production line as the Renault Clio and Zoe https://group.renault.com/en/news/blog-renault/new-nissan-micra-made-at-renault-plants-in-france/

Virgin does not use BT lines to the house as they have their own cable network. However there is no difference in connecting a phone to a Virgin wall box. If you sign up with Virgin they will probably insist on you paying for the phone service as well. However you can cancel it at the end of the initial contract period. I did that as I calculated for the number of calls I make, just using a mobile phone is cheaper. You will probably need a mains plug adapter for your phone transformer block; it is not too easy to find replacements with UK-style plugs

I agree, I'm sure France will wake up to the environmental impact of pellet stoves in the not too distant future. I should have said when the time comes to replace my Viessmann, it will probably be with heat pump. As far as I am aware, air source heat pump efficiency drops significantly below about -10C so supplementary heating will be required here. So a ground source heat pump could be better, especially if the house changes from primary to secondary But I've not yet needed to get quotes so don't know if the lower cost of air source is enough to cover the expense of installation and running costs of automated additional heating?

I had a Viessmann oil-fired boiler with integral hot water installed in 1995. It is still running without problems. An electronic control panel module was replaced about five years ago (€200). I have a maintenance/annual service contract from Engie for it (€190). I've used premium oil for the last ten years. Before that I just used ordinary quality oil. I had the old oil in the plastic tank cleaned when I switched to premium. They used two sets of huge filters as there was so much crud.

You may not have seen any yet, but just search for "whatsapp adverts 2019" and you will see Facebook (the Whatsapp owner) will start doing so on the status screen this year. Unfortunately there is no easy way of getting contacts to switch to Signal except by sending them a message from Signal.

Use Signal https://signal.org instead. It is Opensource software. Not owned by Facebook, unlike Whatsapp, so the likelihood of adverts is zero.

In the late 1990s France opened the market to alternative telephone operators and you could sign up to their services. But you could also use another operator than your default. If I remember correctly, France Telecom charged by the minute or part minute. Other operators might charge a fixed sum for initiating a call and then a lower per second/per minute charge and this was often cheaper overall for longer calls. To allow you to access the other services each operator had their own code number. Rather than dialling a number with a starting 0 (I think 0 must have been the default for your main phone operator?) you could use a different initial number (e.g. 4 for Tele2, 7 for Cegetel, 9 for Neuf Telecom) and FT/Orange were allocated 8 (so you could use SFR as your main phone service provider but still use FT by dialling the number starting with n 8 rather than a 0). I think all those alternative operators are now under SFR after several buyouts/mergers. It was possible to program some telephones so they defaulted to a different service so, even if you dialled 0044 to make a call to the UK the phone might automatically change that to 4044 to use the (usually) cheaper Tele2 service. I think in the early 2000s it became possible to set up automatic preselection of an alternative operator. This was done by asking FT to set up the new default. chessie, I'm a bit puzzled when you say you can't make calls out but at the same time you are being billed by SFR for calls made? I think you could try the following; If your telephone is programmable in any way, check whether you can change the default initial number to 0 rather than 4 (or possibly just reset it to the default settings or just make sure you dial 8044. Contact FT and ask them to remove the preselection of Tele2/SFR

Has everyone forgotten the taxe d'habitation will reduce significantly next year for most of the population?

NickP wrote: When I use my sterling card which I have for many years as it's the only one I've got, I pay in Euros and my Bank does the exchange for the rate at the time. Simple And I thought you said you had a problem with your card not being accepted? Card security is a obviously big issue, causing banks a lot of expense, which is why the checks are getting tighter. But it isn't perfect; although 3DSecure should work, there is a comment on the Monzo blog saying they've had to deal with more than 20 different implementations by the accepting banks, etc. to make sure their compliant card is accepted. As I said earlier, if that verification process doesn't work then the retailer is liable for any fraud, if they still decide to go ahead with the sale. Hence their caution. But the retailers also need to get their card-processing banks to get their systems working for all cards.

Some of the bigger retailers use different methods of online authentication including background checking to speed processing if it is for smaller amounts (or possibly are willing to bear the fraud risk?) In stores there isn't a problem because you are present for verification with a PIN/signature. The other problem is your card was a sterling card and you were buying something priced in euro. So the French service the merchant is using for authorisation could block the transaction as there is the additional step of currency exchange conversion involved.

The problem with your card was probably the French merchant didn't have any way of getting a secondary verification e.g. 3D Secure (= Verified by Visa/Mastercard SecureCode) I usually get a message on my smart phone with a verification number I have to enter as the transaction proceeds. French retailers require this verification for online transactions as it passes liability for any fraud from the retailer to the bank. So that lack of ability to verify your card was probably the reason for your refusals. I didn't think it was a problem with cards issued by major UK banks? However there are a lot of cards issued by intermediary companies (especially debit cards) and those issuers have not yet all updated their systems to include the additional security.

You have given them details of your bank account for the current prelevement. I think you will find they will just take regular amounts from that account based on their estimate of your likely tax bill based on the previous bill. I have a calculation in the last page of my avis which estimates how much they expect to take each month and then: Ce montant sera prélevé chaque mois à compter du 15/01/2019 sur le compte bancaire indiqué en haut de la page 2 de cet avis. Si vous souhaitez modifier le compte bancaire ou opter pour un prélèvement trimestriel, rendez-vous sur impots.gouv.fr

Patf wrote the following post at Tue, Nov 20 2018 18:27: Has anyone ever made this? Supposed to be a classic french veg. dish https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/french/aligot-mashed-potatoes-with-garlic-and-cheese Delia suggests english potatoes, but I couldn't find a recipe with the french equivalent. from https://www.aligot.info/pomme-terre-aligot.html Quelle variété de pomme de terre farineuse choisir ? Bintje : LA patate à choisir si vous devez n’en retenir qu’une, Caesar : si vous ne trouvez pas de bintje… Manon, Marabel, Vitelotte : pour cuisiner un aligot mauve/violet très tendance, Institut de Beauvais : pour un aligot clair, Agria.