[tva increase on 1 october?]

Thanks a lot, thought something must have happened as no publicity about it going up!!

[tva increase on 1 october?]

I can see from reports that M Hollande said this increase would/might be scrapped. Has anyone seen anything to confirm that the rate will not go up to 21.6% in a fortnight please!!

Sorry if this has been discussed and we missed it, life a bit fraught at present.

Mrs H

[English Headlights]

In a similar situation the garage who had changed lights initially paid for a new replacement.  Slight difference was that originally the lights were changed correctly to French. Then: broken headlight replaced but changed to an English one ...  Failed CT.    I had a real "go" at garage (it was my Dad's car not mine) - their excuse was that the lad had checked the computer and the number that came up was (obviously) for a UK light.  Doh.   Boss accepted responsibility and paid for a new light and re-done CT.

Lesson we learned: check what they do on a UK car.

Suggestion: speak to the boss of the garage not the manager or technician and be firm!

We are now always treated well by the garage.

[Orange....Again !!!]

Are you using an "orange" livebox?  We use an adsl router, no livebox, so would doubt they can put anything on our pc!  Don't want it and would complain to Orange if they tried such a thing.

Mrs H

[Good mobile phone contract sought.]

Hello

Can't help over telephone but:

There is no PAYE in France, tax is paid after sending in a tax form.  Lots of deductions though from salary, which her employer will do automatically and they will get her a social security number I think.

Only caveat is that possibly her university has a special scheme for this sort of "stage".

H

[Holiday Insurance claims]

Quote:    Just to clarify, the CPAM will only reimburse  French citizens,

not French residents.

CPAM refunded the costs of anti-biotics and a consultation in China for someone we know - UK citizen but resident in France -  18 months or so ago, but probably they were fazed by the chinese!

[Braising Steak in French please]

We buy "jumeaux" (yes: as in twins) - fine in a casserole but still needs wine or beer to tenderise.

Mrs H

Edit: not sure about "x" on end of word? Sound is right and I have seen it written down.

[Accountant Recommendation Please]

The most important qualification is that the person you see knows about UK as well as French tax, and how they interact.  We were given totally wrong advice by a local accountant who seemed to have no idea about anything other than the French form and indeed told us that we should not enter UK property income on the French form at all.  Er - wrong. Luckily we knew it was wrong (we are both UK accountants) so eventually dealt with it at our local tax office, where the staff member was very helpful, even if he did have to look up how to deal with the rent!!

Good luck

[An interactive map of poverty in 100 French towns]

It seems that the poorest place of all is Saint Pierre and not much better is Saint Paul.  Both of these places are in Reunion.  Is it fair to include places which are not in metropolitan France?

H.

[Wow - blink and you missed it!]

Before pressing "reply" my screen showed:    No photograph (if you mean lavender as I got Firefox to get rid of that...). The site is almost the width of my screen. The bit on the left that shows name of person who wrote a comment is about 1/4 the width of the bit with the actual comment.

So: on my laptop which has a screen about 30 cm wide (not huge at all) the bit with the name is therefore about 6cm, the comment section about 24 cm.

I use Firefox and have no problems viewing at all.

Mrs H

Edit after NickP screen print below. That is what mine looks like too. Tried to "reply" but screen print seems to stop one replying.

[Breakdown cover]

Not in France as such but ADAC (Germany) will cover anyone in Europe.  Search ADAC on forum and you will see earlier comments, or google it!! You have to telephone to join if you are not in Germany but website is in English and they can speak English when phoned.

Hope this helps.

[Taking a car to Germany]

My daughter tells me that 5 euros is the cost of the sticker, so presumably 6 euros includes postage. I admit I did not look in the "online shop" bit much as my daughter will get us one locally and post it to us.

Proves too that I should check before posting info that other people have already posted.  Sorry.

[Taking a car to Germany]

There is a lot of fuss (un-necessarily) being made in the driving section about items needed by tourists as well as locals when driving in France.

In Germany you may also need an environmental sticker for your car if you are visiting cities.   We have to get one for our car for a trip in September to Cologne. Cost is 5 euros and the website below includes an online "shop" where you can buy one. You need to scan your car document to send them. The sticker stays with the car for all time.  Slightly easier for us as our daughter will get us a sticker (we still have to scan the document).

Internet site (in English) with information for

tourists about where you need a sticker etc.

http://www.environmental-badge.co.uk/en/environmental-badge.html

Fine is 40 euros if no sticker shown when you enter a zone (even if your car would have qualified for a sticker but you didn't get one).

Mrs H

[Non functioning telephone]

That is what is annoying as phone was plugged into a "surge" protector.  The power "cut" was during the night and we don;t know why it happened, it was not us though but EDF as power came back on automatically.

Never mind we have a nice new phone.

Mrs H

[New ruling on Winter fuel allowance]

This topic has generated so much hot air I doubt any of us will need a winter fuel payment.   Calm down!

I cannot believe that anyone would move to another country, or not, based on whether they would get this benefit, it is not that big. We certainly didn't.

Some benefits do seem to come from the country of residence (not pension paying country). APA is certainly available in France to immigrants, as we have recently discovered on my mother's behalf.   So long , it seemed, as one had not arrived "the week before" - although we never discovered  how long was necessary (perhaps the 5 years as health care can be).  However we have also seen one person getting the heating "oil" benefit here in France as well as a UK WFA.

As for payment of NI to get a state pension: in the UK so long as one pays the minimum NI per year (the amount changes upwards each year) then after 30 years one qualifies for a state pension, less than 30 years gets you a smaller pension.  The money is not "built up" at all, current pensions are paid from current NI.

Mrs H

[Non functioning telephone]

Tried everything - definitely bust!  Bought a new phone today and happened to see an acquaintance who lives near us - they had heard of several phones going down after a local power cut.  Annoying though as ours was plugged in via a surge protection device.

[Any Powerpoint experts out there?]

Go into "help" at top of page, then type "change default slide setting" and press enter.  You should be able to set default from instructions there!  Hope this helps.

[An English interloper I had not heard or seen before]

From a report in our local paper today:

"........le jeune Thomas est groggy sur place"   He was groggy because another young man had thumped him and indeed Thomas ended up in hospital.

[Bank suddenly asking me to confirm ID, address and means - is this normal?]

Hi

Just been to local Axa agency.  Very helpful girl told us that "lots of English customers" had been into the office yesterday to complain about and query the email.  She had therefore telephoned upwards and been told that we did not have to complete the form.  She implied that another email would be sent (can they identify their "English" (sic) clients?).

We shall do as the young lady says and ignore this request and see what happens. We did say we were willing to provide identity and address verification if requested.   We absolutely agree that if we wanted advice or one of their savings products further information would be required and we would accept that, but not necessarily all the info they asked for on this email.

Interesting that we were not told that any "French" people had queried the request for information...

Mrs H

[An English interloper I had not heard or seen before]

All the shops round here that get re-furbished are advertised as "relooke" (accent on e - sorry using US keyboard, on a laptop, cannot see where on this site to get symbols.

[Hog Roast]

Up here in Normandie they seem to be very popular. Lots of adverts so a choice of suppliers - who do the whole thing.  My Dad wants one when he is 90 next summer.

Good luck with finding one.

[Non functioning telephone]

No, it is just an ordinary phone, so will find manual and see if we can re-set the base station. All handsets are Ok and do not seem to need batteries.

Thanks for suggestions

Mrs H

[Bank suddenly asking me to confirm ID, address and means - is this normal?]

The AXA home page for logging on to your account says that they have emailed all customers, so at least the email is real!

H.

[Non functioning telephone]

Hi, we imagine our telephone (the actual instrument) will need to be consigned to telephone heaven.  If one tries to telephone out it appears to dial the number but after a deathly silence the phone one is ringing appears engaged.  Having discovered that the caller we were trying to contact earlier has not had any calls today, nor used his dial-up internet connection we realised we had a problem.  We cannot get incoming calls either as we have tried to and from our mobile phone.

I have unplugged, re-plugged, changed adsl filter but nothing helps.  An old fashioned  basic phone we keep for when we have a power cut works perfectly.

Do all you experts agree our telephone has died please? Anything else to try?  We will be sad to lose it as there are 3 handsets and one is in our workroom over the garage, 50 metres away, and allows internal communication with the house.

Thanks a lot

Mrs H

[Bank suddenly asking me to confirm ID, address and means - is this normal?]

Just printed off the email and attachment we received.   It will be difficult to comply anyway with their identity request as it asks for (copy of) identity card or passport showing photo, signature and address.   Also they want a utility bill dated within the last three months - which I am pretty sure we do not have! Possibly I can find a telephone bill online, but if I print it one could hardly call it proof of anything.

We shall take what proof of identity and address we can find to the local agent and ask the purpose of the other questions (we know what they want it for of course), and say that we have not asked for nor do we want or need their advice, and we have none of their "products".   If they persist we will close the account.

Mrs H