lindal1000

We rent out a house and are about to rent a second. We gave up with the agents as they were hopeless..advertised ourselves on Le bon Coin and vetted the tenants ourselves. The one we had did not meet the financial requirements but her parents were guarantors. If you have a guarantor then usually you can't get insurance. There is a government scheme that provides insurance for young renters on low incomes, that they can sign up to for free. Our first tenant moved on after a year and we have just re let to a nurse, who also didn't meet any of the criteria but again her parents were guarantors and she seemed very nice.. you can't really tell, but we had many enquiries and some were a no right from the first contact. We always check ours out on Facebook as well.. just to make sure they don't have any dodgy looking friends!

At least another 2 years of this before we get any more clarity

I agree Judith One of the things that has seemed a bit ironic in much of the discussion on the French groups re the GJ, is the call for campaigners to 'boycott the shops', 'stop buying things' 'only buy essentials'. It's only recently that we have had spare money to start buying a few non essentials so I found the idea that people, who were complaining about the cost of living, saw not buying luxury items as a protest and not and essential part of economising. My brother said he came through France last weekend past a few roadblocks. He was able to pass in a good humoured way. They told him it was getting harder and harder to make a living and fuel was too expensive. He said he didn't like to tell them that fuel was even more expensive in the Uk. At one of the roadblocks their German Shepherd in the back of the car started letting rip..frothing at the windows etc. and that was enough for them to let him pass!

Well I suppose it's both..you can't get the passport without citizenship but it's the passport that you right to travel..or if your're French I guess you can do it with an ID card.. To me they are much the same thing.

Since when is applying for the passport of another country anything to do with being honest about your feelings. If I told them what I really felt I would not get a passport from anywhere, including the country of my birth..but I certainly wouldn't say that if I was applying for nationality. You just read up on the answers that people are wanting to hear and repeat them..just like any exam. You don't have to believe any of it. A passport is something that allows you free travel within that country, the same rights as someone born there, and in the case of a passport from an Eu country, access to 26 other countries. I don't know whether any of you read the writing of Harry Leslie Smith? He is one of the few surviving WW2 veterans..grew up in poverty in the North of England, served in the RAF, married a German woman, had three kids.. At the age of 90 he started writing and campaigning for refugees, the NHS, and the Labour party. He is currently very ill in hospital..at 95 with pneumonia and not a great chance of surviving. However, everything I have heard from him and about him suggested he was British and resident in the UK. Well I found out today that after he married he emigrated to Canada, has dual nationality and spent all his working life there, and now spends 6 months of the year in Canada and 6 months in the UK. In Canada he campaigns the for the same things as he does in the UK. If you decide to become a national of another country you don't have to give up your roots and culture or necessarily other nationalities. You become an French- Canadian, or a British Canadian or a Greek Australian or a Jamaican British citizen.

"can't remember if you said but if your looking to become a resident in France and are under state retirement age you will not only have to support yourself via an income (which you do) but your going to have to pay tax and social contributions for your healthcare etc. " I think if you pay tax and NI in the UK then you are entitled to a workers S1 and that covers your healthcare in France doesn't it?

We had to get certified translated copies for our certificates when we did our PACs. I've got a copy of them and will just reproduce all of that if necessary. To be honest, the paperwork we supplied for the PACS was far more complicated than we will need for a CdS

Where you claim your pension from depends on which country you last worked in.. If you last worked in France, you have to claim it in France.

"So, could be a double whammy for those of us living in the EU who expected to reach UK retirement age before Brexit but have had our retirement date put off to after Brexit - not only do we have to work for longer but when we do eventually get to retire, we won't stand to benefit from these arrangements." Unless they are ringfenced as part of the withdrawal agreement or any other agreements made in the event of the UK crashing out without a deal. I do however, think the latter is still highly unlikely..more likely to have another vote than a no deal I think..the consequences would just be too severe for the UK..

The answers, for the current situation, while the UK is part of the EU, can be found here https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/retire-abroad/state-pensions-abroad/index_en.htm "f you've worked in several EU countries, you may have accumulated pension rights in each of them. You'll have to apply to the pension authority in the country where you're living or you last worked. If you've never worked in the country where you're living, your host country will forward your claim to the one you last worked in. That country is then responsible for processing your claim and bringing together records of your contributions from all the countries you worked in." Working in this context means being economically active, and that includes being self employed, as long as you have registered as such. " In some EU countries, you must have worked for a minimum period of time to be entitled to a pension. In such cases, the pension authority has to take into account all the periods you've worked in other EU countries, as if you'd been working in that country all along, to assess whether you're entitled to a pension ( principle of aggregation of periods)." "Each pension authority will calculate the part of the pension it should pay taking into account periods completed in all EU countries. To do so, it will add together the periods you completed in all EU countries and work out how much pension you would get had you contributed into its own scheme over the entire time (called the theoretical amount). This amount will then be adjusted to reflect the actual time you were covered in that country (called the pro-rata benefit). The national rate If you meet the conditions for entitlement to a national pension irrespective of any periods completed in other countries, the pension authority will also calculate the national pension (known as an independent benefit). Result The national authority will then compare the pro-rata benefit and the independent benefit; you will receive whichever is higher from that EU country.

" find it hard to imagine that Macron’s government would want current EU residents in France given a hard time after brexit. " I don't think they do..but they can't avoid the fact that we will become third county nationals, and it would be hard to argue that we deserve special treatment either.

A 10 year old girl was shot and killed by hunters a couple of weeks ago. She was having a picnic with her family and the hunters shot through the trees at something and claim the bullet bounced off a tree. Our friend (French) was in her house a couple of weeks ago when a bullet cracked through the window, passed her nose and ended up embedded in the oak door the other side of the living room. Gendarme were called..the culprit was seen waving from a distance and running off.

I don't think anyone has to apologise for the fact that it was shown then.. it was indicative of the time and in that sense it's interesting that times have changed and maybe people now don't find it funny anymore. I look at some things that I used to find funny or interesting in the 1980s and I can't understand why now.. but I did at the time. From what I read of it..the 'fuss' was by the media. A headmaster made, in his words, a poor choice of video clip to illustrate a point. A few parents complained, he apologised.. over and done with until the papers got hold of it and blew it up into a public incident! When I was at school the parents all complained about the sex education film we were shown. They thought it was too explicit, but because it wasn't really explicit enough none of us really understood it and so asked lots of awkward questions afterwards. Fortunately it never made the front pages of The Sun, as it would now.

So..for the context.. It wasn't shown to children but at a parents evening, with the aim of illustrating the importance of communication between parents and teachers. "The clip, titled “The Sheikh in the Grocery Store”, was played at a parents’ information evening at Archway School in Stroud, Gloucestershire. The 1985 sketch features Ronnie Corbett, wearing dark makeup and an Arabic keffiyeh, mispronouncing the names of items on his shopping list. As he enters the store, Ronnie Barker’s shopkeeper says: “Old Ali Baba’s a bit off course. Morning Abdul.” Corbett’s character tries to buy a series of items off a shopping list, mispronouncing words including “chocolate mousse” and “tomato puree”. Barker’s shopkeeper initially misunderstands and then tries to correct Corbett’s character, but he swiftly mimics the flawed pronunciations when the frustrated sheikh placed a pile of cash on the counter. Several parents complained it was offensive “I love The Two Ronnies but showing someone with their face blacked up in order to laugh at their accent, in this day and age? I was furious.” Another added: “The Two Ronnies are brilliant, but there’s just no place for this racist humour anymore.” And "A 2016 study by broadcasting regulator Ofcom found modern-day television and radio audiences were less tolerant of racist or discriminatory words than ever before. The research found context was important, with viewers more likely to accept offensive language in realistic situations. Tony Close, director of content standards at Ofcom, said at the time: “People draw the line at racist and discriminatory language – participants felt this was the most unacceptable of all. “Most people see these words as derogatory and insulting.” In 2014, departing Ofcom chief Ed Richards said some 1970s comedies could longer be shown because modern-day viewers found them offensive. He told The Independent: “[There are] comedies from the Seventies which had certain racial stereotypes in them which are unimaginable today and if they were shown people would find them offensive and that wouldn’t just be people from black and ethnic minority communities, it would be everybody. “I think the country has moved on in a very important way there.”

I have no idea why he was reprimanded..but I would be reprimanded if I delivered a lesson or a plan that didn't meet the learning objectives of the module or course. If you were teaching about how humour changes over generations, or the representation of social class in humour, then it would seem very appropriate. I don't know the context of his lesson and neither does anyone else except for those involved.

Humour does change though. I doubt anyone under 30 would get the Two Ronnies, Morcome and Wise, Benny etc. Even I didn't really like them first time round. Some humour seems to be more timeless..I'm thinking of Dad's army, which basically poked fun and the social class divisions and snobbery of the day.. Even that though, I doubt holds much relevance for inner city kids. I would say the mistake he made was to assume humour from his day would be relevant or understood today.. nothing really to do with political correctness. If it's not funny then it's not funny.

I've got far more important things to be offended about than spelling.

Personally I'm not bothered at all about a single room so I wouldn't bother to insure for that. I have an ALD for an autoimmune disease and here they are quite strict about only reimbursing things related to that.. All other medication I pay the difference for myself..so my influenza vaccination was only reimbursed partially so I think it cost me around 12 euros plus a small fee to the nurse to give the vaccination. (If I was brave I could have done it myself). So all in all, at the moment the extra costs I pay for medication are way less than any contribution for a mutuelle. When I went to see a specialist I did end up paying a little extra, as not all the charges were conventionee , but it only added up to about an additional 20 euros.. I do plan to get a hospital only policy to cover the basics for any unexpected hospital admissions as I'm getting older, but I'm not convinced yet by anything more comprehensive.

I can see that with the fall in the pound, if you are translating prices back and forth, then yes, even without inflation, products will seem more expensive in france now. However if you just look at the euro price many things have not gone up that much. Salmon seems to have..I used to be able to get it on offer for 7 euros a kilo but the cheapest I can find now is around 10 euros..Chicken and pork are about the same.. Idun, you can also by milk here which is a bit more expensive but more money goes to the farmers..and the same with eggs.

We eat no meat o 2-3 times a week.. so eggs..or things made with chickpeas.. or lentils..they don't seem to me any different. If I make a meat based sauce I put lentils and beans in it anyway because it is healthier.. I buy one pack of lettuce (either an iceberg or the little gem lettuces) at 99 cents, and they last a week.. cucumbers 2 for 1 euro 50.. 99cents worth of tomatoes. In the winter I buy broccoli and carrots.. I buy meat in bulk when we eat it ..so chicken breast s 5.99 a kilo.. I don't know.. I don't seem to spend that much on food for a week.. a bit more in the summer because we go out to the food markets..but that isn't a necessity.. we get though a bagette a day, a bowl of cereals and a litre of milk every three days? I buy a couple of packs of cheese a week for lunches.. fish maybe once a month? A few spices, garlic, onions..I haven't shopped in the UK for a while, but last time I was there those things seemed about the same price, and definitely more expensive that when I used to live there. PS. Milk is around 99 cents a litre fresh here.. I make my own yoghurt with long life milk.. Pasta and cleaning products I get from Lidl as they are reasonable price and reasonable quality. I can't believe they would be very much more expensive in France than Lidl UK, seeing as they are mainly sourced from Germany.

We rent out a two bedroomed house for 500 euros per month and a one bedroom one for 400.. both in small towns,, I used to get £750 per month from my rental property in the UK before I sold it! However the value of the UK was 5 times the value of the French ones put together! For us, our cost of living still works out about the same.. Food is virtually identical..some things are more expensive but others are cheaper.. our heating costs are the same. driving a bit more because we have to drive a bit more.. As others have said.. it's impossible to compare really... we're better off in France but I can see that some people might not be, depending on what you spend your money on.. (BIg reason we are better off is that in the UK, because of our jobs, we couldn't live in the same house, so we had to run two houses and spend a lot of time commuting at the weekend..here our expensives are almost halved)

Permanently since 2010

This is what I want from our holiday accommodation: Clean, modern and safe.. no nick nacks or other ornaments.. tasteful bordering on plain.. Prefer somewhere that supplies and launders sheets and towels. Good cooking facilities as prefer to provide own breakfast and snacks. Outside space/garden or terrace with a nice view. Comfortable bed..not one that has been chucked out after being slept on for 20 years. Option to pay for someone to clean. Somewhere that accepts dogs.

We've decided we quite like the Pyrenees for our holidays..we were thinking about buying a small apartment there but changed our mind, so have been looking for holiday rentals. We don't mind paying a little extra to have somewhere that is nicely furnished, provides bedding and will do the cleaning, but we have really struggled to find somewhere. They are all very basic.. This way however, all the gites are nice, clean, well provided for etc.. Some friends of ours have just bought house with 3 gites. They have tidied it up, modernised it a bit, put their prices up, and although just their first full season they are full and already have bookings for next summer..(And yes, they are fully registered and pay charges and taxes) so I guess if you give people what they want then you will do well wherever you are.

My partner lived here from about 1984 onwards. He said there were ways around the system..little fiddles etc. but it was not straightforward, and neither was living in France, from check-ins with the gendarmes and having to renew your CdS often..He was going to apply for naturalisation at that time, but then when the EU and freedom of movement came in there didn't seem much point. He has spent more of his adult life in France than the UK, but in the brave new post Brexit world that counts for nothing as it hasn't been continuous residence.