martin

I am quite impressed with how you manage to get information from the dwp. I have an interest in this matter as my wife's dla was stopped  when we arrived in France.  Perhaps it was fortunate that the dwp carried on paying her for a few months before then realising and subsequently demanding it back.  I say "fortunate" because the repayments were arranged in instalments such that her file was kept live for a long time afterwards; I assume it still exists. I wrote in a few weeks ago to query the situation and gave relevant details of my wife's claim, but received a standard fob-off type letter without any indications of what the outcome may be, nor any idea of timescale. Subsequently I telephoned the Exportability Team phone number, but eventually it was answered by someone at the general Help Desk.  He managed to bring my wife's file up on his screen but knew absolutely nothing about the recent EU ruling, except that "he heard there was something happening". So, from the info you have got, it seems that they are or will be looking at individual cases.  We'll probably get more news from following this thread than waiting for the dwp to contact us!  

Thank you for your advice. I have passed this all on to my neighbours, who will start the ball rolling on monday.    

Thanks to the above; seems to suggest there is no quick solution. Made me think though, what about a woman here on holiday giving unexpected and premature birth?  There must be a way round this predicament.

I'm sure that there must be a simple answer to this one, but I don't know it. A neighbouring family, who are Irish nationals recently came to live in the area; they are setting up a business and intend living here permanently. A couple of weeks ago, she gave birth here in France - all very happy and seemingly uncomplicated, but................... They now want to go back to family in Eire for Christmas and it has just struck them, how do they get baby through passport control? She has tried contact with the Irish Consulate but was advised to apply for an Irish passport in the normal way, which would take many weeks. They have asked us if we know the solution.  I said, "no", but I know a forum which does! Anyone know?

We live in 33 and so far haven't had a letter - no problem anyway as we've been here over 5 years and have a (now expired) carte de sejour which proves our residency. We are both "inactifs" but each receive quite good pensions, so of course pay quite a lot into CPAM I wonder if when all the dust settles, we can actually choose to opt out of CMU in favour of private health care.  I haven't researched costs yet, but I suspect that we may be better off with private insurance. Has anyone any views or knowledge of such an option?    

We have bought three times and sold twice through agents, but are very interested in selling privately next time - in fact imminently.  I believe  there are a number of internet sites where I can place an ad, but I only know of French Connections. I would appreciate recommendations about any others. We live between Bergerac and Bordeaux.    

[quote user="martin"] This was on The Connexion website 6 Nov....................   CONFIRMATION OF FIVE-YEAR RULE AMID CONFUSION http://www.connexionfrance.com/expatriate-news-article.php?art=51 Post edited by a moderator to remove text of above article, due to copyright issues. [/quote]Actually it was a subsequent article I was referring to   http://www.connexionfrance.com/expatriate-news-article.php?art=55

This was on The Connexion website 6 Nov....................   CONFIRMATION OF FIVE-YEAR RULE AMID CONFUSION http://www.connexionfrance.com/expatriate-news-article.php?art=51 Post edited by a moderator to remove text of above article, due to copyright issues.

Having read and kept up to date with all this, I am absolutely dumfounded that such an important and even devastating issue as this can be so uncertain as to where the goal posts are, particularly in relation to the "five year rule".  Surely someone somewhere in the governments of France and UK can spell out exactly what the new rules are to be.  There must be some minister or official who by now can say what is to be implemented.  I cannot believe that we are shrouded in such ambiguity, misinformation and half truths. Have I missed something?  I have lived here as an "inactif" with my family for over five years with a very good pension and no need to work.  If the new rules are to apply to me, I have a number of openings to obtain minimum part-time work, but I don't want to, nor do I want to take a post which could be offered to someone more needy of employment, but needs must as I won't run to private health insurance.  So, in short all it will mean to me is that I will have to work unnecessarily for 15 hours a week, earn more money than I need and deprive a French unemployed person from work. Brilliant!

Thank-you all for your advice. I have made an appointment to discuss all this with a notaire before coming to any decision.

We have just had our inspection d'assainissement non collectif and as expected have been told that we need to install a complete new system. No problem so far as we have plenty of land. However our neighbour too needs a new system to replace his cess-pit under his house.  Unfortunately he doesn't have much land, so has suggested that we go together with a suitably big enough fosse septique, but on our land! In theory, this sounds okay as we need one anyway, and to share costs can't be a bad idea.  I am now wondering if this would be a foolish move, particularly when we come to sell our house.  Maybe even problems when things go wrong with the tank. Does anybody have experience of a similar situation and have any knowledge of legal implications? My feeling now is to say no, but I sympathise with his position.        

As cooperlola said, you will have to live here for five years and most importantly be able to prove such residency; e.g; affiliation to cpam, declaration as fiscal residents or even an attestation from the mairie. If you are serious about this, start now to gather and file every certificate of birth and marriage for you, your parents and offspring, even certificates from previous marriages, proof of past employment, criminal records checks; in fact keep everything in a box file, because you will need to produce them for so many bureaucratic processes long before you are eligible for naturalisation. You say that your wife would like to gain citizenship - it would be better if you would too as doing it as a couple or family is more likely to be successful. The authorities quite rightly want to know why you want nationality, it's not good enough to say simply that you would like it. They may well question the commitment if just one of a couple goes for it.  In your case as a couple or family living here (?) your reasons would be that France is your new and permanent home and you want to establish yourselves, you want to vote and you want to integrate. In our case, we have two school children who have been brought up here and will no doubt live and work here, marry here and have children here. We are keeping on top of our applications, but although not difficult it is very time-consuming and fraught with red tape.    

We have a private pool which complies with the AFNOR specs re security; in our case it is alarmed. However, it is to my knowledge that a large minority (or even majority) of pool owners haven't bothered with any security since it became obligatory.  Now that's up to them and they take the risks, but I would be interested to learn if anyone knows of any prosecutions for non-compliance or indeed have any owners been subjected to inspections.     

I am currently compiling dossiers to apply for Naturalisation par Decret (we are British) - me, wife and two school children. I have to wait about another month before we take them in to the Prefecture at Bordeaux We have lived here over five years, speak the language and generally comply with all the requirements. It seems impossible to make contact by the telephone, fax or email with the prefecture, so I have written in with a few queries, but it took four weeks to receive a reply - not a very speedy way to get answers! So has anyone recently been through or are going through the process?  I would like to ask a few more questions.  Conversely, if anyone is thinking os going for it, I do have limited knowledge and would be glad to share what I have learnt so far.