5-element

Thanks Coops, I'd done that (following SD's advice and having studiously and carefully read all the official blurb on the subject - it's just your post that threw me, as I hadn't remembered you not having an S1/exE121 - so I thought "could I have it ALL wrong?". Mostly reassured now, it's so easy to get anxious and paranoid[:)] about filling a tax return correctly.

Of course, you are too young, Coops, I forgot!!! Sorry, my neurones were busy doing somersaults, I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to really "get it"...[kiss]

But Coops, surely, if your pension is from the UK ONLY, then you have an S1, and therefore you still WON'T have to pay Social contributions. I thought it is only for people like myself, pension from the UK, BUT I also have a tiny pension from having worked in France early on in my life, and that meant that I lost my S1 (no choice there) and therefore became à la charge of French Sécu. The fact that you get medically treated here in France, doesn't mean you are "a la charge" of the French healthcare, since it is the UK who pays for you - because of your S1. The change for me this year is that I will have to pay CSG etc... on ALL my income, instead of only on my French income as it was last year.   There is no change for my husband, who will continue to have his own S1. So in effect, as far as social contributions go, we will have to be taxed separately. I don't know how "they" will work that one out, given that we have a joint return.   Please someone tell me I am right, it took me ages for the change to percolate????

Don't you like old goat? Although strangely, I see old goat as being more applicable to a male rather than to a female, maybe that is the issue you are referring to. You say you are stuck: are you writing a formal letter? [:P] Another thought is that "old cow" might be more appropriate in the English language. Still a mammal, anyway.

Well Gardian, I hadn't seen this particular version, and this is definitely the one I like best, thank you.[:D] This is a perfect example of what the french call "rire jaune" - which is what I did as I was reading it. So close to the bone, it hurts!

Idun, you should never have started this thread! I am now onto this one (I specialise in teajerkers)[:)]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ik1pxav-CM

That's it, you lot have done it now! "Eleanor Rigby" it is, and it won't go away!![:'(] I always found it such a depressing song too...

This song haunted me night and day for several weeks, and I don't even like the singer at all!!! I never understood why it just would not go away. (so I am posting the link without listening to it, just in case!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOP8hUwMAc&feature=related I have often been haunted by a song, or a piece of music, to the point that it would stop me sleeping at night. I have to be very careful about what I listen to because of it.

I agree that "Amour" seems unmissable (Trintignant, Riva, Huppert) and the theme! Hard to watch too, but  a different register from Le Prophète's universe of men. "La Pianiste" was so good, Isabelle Huppert such a great actress. But then I realised that it is the same Michael Haneke who made one of the most terrifying, traumatic and haunting movies I have ever seen: "Funny Games", the 1997 version (there was a remake in 2007, which I haven't seen). What a film-maker!

Thank you Clair, for the article on "Les Hommes Libres" - one that I do want to see. I was all set up to watch "Un prophète" last night. I could see it was (is) an excellent movie, but I just couldn't stick the atmosphere, so heavy, brutal,  oppressive, so I switched off the TV halfway through the film (especially since I could see where it was going). It was quite a relief to get away from that kind of reality, for me it is enough to know that it exists, I didn't want to have to witness it firsthand.

Eva Joly a possible "Haut Commissaire à la réforme financière?" I would imagine her rather fierce and uncompromising in that post. She has the right kind of experience.

"Un Prophète" will be shown on FR.2 tomorrow Sunday 20 mai, at 20.45 http://www.programme-tv.net/videos/vu-a-la-tv/5380-un-prophete-france-2-bande-annonce-20-mai/

"Elle est Canon" or "Regarde-moi ces Nikons"... (sorry peeps, it is so silly but I couldn't stop myself)[blink]

I think he is losing his dentures. She is incredible. Look at that flat tummy and that waist! Even though OK, she got a lot of help, she still had to do quite a lot of it herself!

I have kept quiet until now, even though I am implicated in the thread title. I really, absolutely have no time for that woman. She is a cheap shot wind-up merchant. And yet...ghastly as she is, she does make some pertinent points - as far as one can generalise, which is usually not very far at all but... - about the way French culture affects women and their relationship to each other.

I very much like the "non cumul des mandats" - it's taken a long time coming!!! It has been really outrageous how some of those politicians were supposed to fill several separate functions, each of which would require an almost 24/7 amount of dedication for the job to be done properly. Now, if you are a minister, you are "just" a minister and have to give up on the other things - however lucrative all those simultaneous posts were. Astonishing that it has finally happened.

double post? How is that possible?

We will have to wait a bit to see how it all gels together - to me at least, there are many unknown people, no idea what this will all bring! I notice that J.M. Ayrault as an ex German teacher, is fluent in German. Manuel Vals is fluent in Spanish, Catalan, and Italian. Let's hope that a few others are fluent in English? Showing my own bias, I will be interested to see what Cécile Duflot manages. What happend to Bertrand Delanoe, who was supposed to be Minister of Justice? And what happens to Ségolène Royal - although some of her best mates were picked as ministers (like Aurelie Filipetti?) You said something elsewhere about Roselyne Bachelot. I have always had a weak spot for her too, she is the one I was sorry to see go. I do hope we will see her again (am also in awe of the amount of weight she has managed to lose, not with "dieting" proper, but just doing sport, eating less, and giving up on the morning viennoiseries.) (sorry, off topic!)[:D])

Happy birthday to all of you little chickens.

Thank you Theiere for the article. It is great news if you are a bee breeder, but is it great news for the Australian bees, who are being sent to their death? And what happens when the Australian bees run out?

Thumbs up Stan! Just like it said on the box then. Glad it went well, and so it appears it was worth doing, for the removal of benign polyps.

No problem Norman, I will do as Parsnips advised - it's just that I would like to really understand and know all the nitty-gritty. not just my own situation, but in general.   I am not sure that being French makes any difference, and I also don't know what was the sequence of events in my "basculing" from UK healthcare to French healthcare. It seemed to happen simultaneously, so I don't know which country decided first that it is CMU/French medical care from now on. I now suspect that those people who were able to keep their S1 are those who FIRST contributed to UK system at the beginning of their working life, and then the French one, in that order. Whereas I did the reverse. Why it should make a difference, I don't know.

Norman, are you sure that there are people who still get an S1 from the UK even though they have a French pension??? I certainly never had the choice - I had my S1/E121 from age 60 as I got my UK state pension (for most of my working life). As soon as I was 65 and was entitled to the minute French pension from all those years ago, my S1 was withdrawn and I had to be part of the French system. I would have thought this applies across the board, no choice??? Norman, from what I understand of the new, not just the French one, as from this year's declaration. But surely you don't have to enter your French pensions in section VIII, since this is for "income from abroad"...only your British pension? There you go, I have managed to confuse myself all over again. Small comfort that you, such a good researcher, are uncertain too... I would be more than reluctant to go to the Hotel des Impots in the hope of clarification - they have been wrong, and firmly so, in the past.

[quote user="NormanH"] Your point "since I have a tiny French pension I was  automatically propelled out of S1 and medical care being paid for by the UK. I became "à la charge du French health system" -" is exactly what I have been talking about with mixed success on  other threads, notably about the French pension gained by having been an AE [/quote] Indeed you did talk about that quite a lot, I watched those threads like a hawk!  But getting into the French system via AE is different insofar as people on the forum, British expats in general,   join the French system at the end of their working life, so their last contributions will be paid to France. Mine is the opposite: I first worked in France, then in England - so England is the last country where I paid my contributions. I know that WHICH country you paid your last contributions/cotisations does matter a lot  (although not to CSG/CRDS) - and now I can't remember in which context it matters[:'(] sorry!!! (It might come back)

Parsnips, many thanks. You are so clear and matter-of-factly, now that you say it,  it seems obvious, whereas I get into such a muddle with official forms!  You might have saved me a lot of concern and uncertainty...[:)]