Tourangelle

I use my own name and not my husband's.  We're with the société générale, and although they are only as good as any other French bank, they did not blink an eyelid when I told them that I wanted everything to say Mme but not to change the name (we had the joint account there already).    You don't say whether or not you have bought a house.  If you did, and decided to use La Poste, they would probably ask about your maritial status, and more likely than not, you will have a lot of name problems, all over again.  La Poste is out of date, dump them, your wife is perfectly within her rights to use her name and be referred to as Mme.  Jane

TU that seems enormously expensive.  Do you have something really acute or complexe?  My husband has hypermetrophy and an astigamatism (so not straightforward)  and he got glasses with the lenses at 65 euros each last week, (before the mutual gave him anything back).  This was from 'Mutoptic', but I think they are only in the Rhone-Alpes area, however they were very good and looked at all the options with us; such as anti reflecting glass, smear proof glass and so on.  We could then see how the price was altered - a consideration as this was just to have a spare pair.  I wonder whether you are being ripped off in the sense that the optician is perhaps adding all these options in without informing you.  I would also say to those that say do it in the UK, that at least the sight test here is well covered by the secu... Jane

Mistral Does that mean it is too weird?  I just hope you didn't do the CAPES twice...

Mistral That's kind of freaky in a nice way!  I am preparing the CAPES at the moment, and I think already have it? I just hope you weren't an English assistant who dated a teacher too, else that would be just too weird.   Jane

I met my husband when I was on my year abroad from university.  Cheap houses, lifestyle choices don't even come into it for me.  But I had an enormous dose of Francophilia before I moved here, that's why I studied French.  I am surprised nobody else has this reason, I am really not unusual, I know absolutely loads of British people married to French people, but they just don't look at this sort of site very often I don't think.   There is definitely a culture clash being married to a French person, I don't know anybody who doesn't feel that from time to time.  However, fortunately my husband and I have never gone in for the tiresome tit for tat France is better than England thing, which some couples do, we both appreciate each other's country and although we live in France now, I am sure that we will go at live in England at some stage Jane

http://money.msn.fr/impots/impots/actualites/conseils/sommaire/argentadeux07/default.asp This link explains how different clauses can be put in marriage contracts to modify them.  Sorry it is all in French Jane

I tend to agree with Val.  However, I would also say that having the brevet does not seem to count for much here.  It is not an equivalent to the GCSEs.  Also it is done a year early. A forteen year old who moves here isn't necessarily going to spend their life here.  You never know, but what if it doesn't work out?  Or the child, perfectly legitimately does not want to stay in France as  an adult?  Living in Britain and having no GCSE's does not sound like a great position to be in.  I mean, if the child is not academic, then that is like having no qualifications at all, and if the child is academic then what?  They struggle though the French school system - and starting at 14 it would be a struggle and go to university here (not that that is a great option)?  Well if they manage that, fantastic, but if not, and they try to return to Britain, then no GCSE's could be a handicap.  I think 14 is a difficult age to go into the French school system and missing out on getting any GCSEs could be prejudicial Jane

If it is based on income it is very strange that it has only ever been in my name not my husband's.  Perhaps I've been paying too little???

So if you go for a GP type problem but the person is also an acupuncturist you get 20 euros back, but if you go just to get the needles put in it is less?  Sounds kind of unfair on the doctor that one, but I suupose they're stopping reimbursing all these homeopathic medicines it is just part of a general pattern.  It's a real pity!!! Jane

I've always paid mine since I moved in 1997.  It is not based on income it is set by the commune where you live and as I understand it based on the size of the property, or the number of rooms or indeed windows (lots of urban myths on this one)  And now it includes the redevance télé, merci M. Sarkozy, I don't have one and had to declare not having one...!

Jackie My understanding is there is no absolute standard cu, so it depends exactly what yours says for how it might apply to things other than property.   Jane 

Really Teamedup only 12 euros?  My  husband gets back 20 when he goes for acupuncture as his is a GP. 

Tontine is not a marriage contract it is just a way to buy a house!  There are basically 3 marriage contacts, communauté universelle, séparation des biens and la communaité reduite aux acquêts.  And if you haven't signed up to one, you are considered to have the latter if you get married in France.  This means that what you had before you got married is yours, and what you buy together is 50/50.  But I think that what is often not pointed out on this site is that there is not 'a' marriage contract as such.  If you go for séparation des biens for example, it does not mean that you have to divide everything.  Basically so long as it is legal you can put what you want in the contract.  The tree names are for convenience.    For example, you can limit your séparation des biens to some 'biens' and not others, so long as it is well defined, and you don't disinherit a minor... I'm not an expert, but a French friend who is explained this all to me recently

I think it does depend what you want it for.  I have heard that the Chambre de commerce exams are considered good, but obviously they are very business based. 

Contact the ADIL in your department, I think it is free, we went to see them when we were thinking of buying and didn't pay anything.

Wealthy, You have some really big questions.  This one is too big or do I mean too general?  An answer is going to involve whether or not you are working, if you are self employed, or if you are retired and multiple other elements.  It's really complicated.  Since you are Wealthy, if I were you, I would go back to the Living France main page and have a look at the book shop there and buy a guide.  Perhaps somebody could suggest a good one?  I don't mean to say don't use this forum,  on the contrary, but as I say, you seem to have some fairly fundamental issues. Good luck Jane

Hi Athene I don't want to be a spanner in the works, but have you adopted each others children?  This is how I understand it.  If you have CU, even if it is just relating to the house, when one person dies, the other owns it outright.  The remaining person cannot disinherit their children.  If you have two children, I think they get a third each, by French law, there is nothing you could do about it.  The person can only dispose of the remaining third.  So you could only leave your step children half of a third.  On which they would have to pay enormous tax, because they are not blood relatives.  Assuming your four children all get on brilliantly, and work it out among themselves, it is still a difficult situation.  I'm sure lots of people out there know more about this than me, but it seems cu can be very complicated with second marriages.  Jane

You don't get "deals" as such with French trains, it is all the SNCF, none of these smaller companies offering various prices on slight variations of the same route that you get in the UK.  The only difference I'm aware of in terms of the difference between internet booking and going to the station is that there are some last minute deals available on the internet, but only on very specific routes at specific times. 

5 euros all round I'd say.  I only do postman, binmen, firemen, but then I'm in the big bad city and I've heard about loads of scams.  I'd be suspicous of anybody selling a calendar in September though!

This is perhaps more of a cultural question than a food one, but as I saw my elderly neighbour pulling 6 bottles of water home again today, it really made me think, what's wrong with the tap?  I drink the tap water, often putting it in the fridge first, and it's fine. I just wonder whether other people out there find this widespread purchasing of eau de source  strange or if anybody has gone over to buying their water in the supermarket, like the French and if so why?

Athene, I think I know what problem you might have.  In France if you don't get married with a contract from the outset, you have to wait until two years after your marriage to change.  If you got married in England but then moved to France immediately, your marriage would be considered to be a French marriage and in absence of a contract, you are automatically considered to be married owning half each of what you acquire after the marriage. Is that right? I think there is some info on this in FAQ tontine clause.

been there done that, it is not that complicated.  You need to contact the French embassy in London.  They send you a form to fill in and you send it back with the marriage certificate.  Then, they send you back the info they have and you have to sign to say it is correct.  They  then send the whole thing to Nantes, where overseas marriages are registered.  You then get back a nice translation of the marriage certificate and the livret de famille, from London.  I think we just had to pay the postage.  I am a bit jealous - nobody here has yet asked me for my livret de famille!!

British qualifications are necessarily recognised, we're all Europeans now and so on..., that said, I've found it useful to have my degree translated (traducteur assermenté) not least because the original is in Welsh and English.  Some places ask you to have an attestation de niveau des études apparently, but I've never been asked.  This would be from the Académie of whereever you live. Bac + 2 is BTS or DEUG for the French, I don't think there is really a British equivalent; a degree is bac +3, even if it took you four years because you did a language, bac +4 would be with a masters.  It does seem to be the qualification that counts rather than the time you might have taken to do it.  My husband has a masters in Librarianship here, which was a full time two year course, but he only gets to put bac+4 on his CV and not +5.  It's all in the course of changing now anyway, la maitrisse is going to be phased out of French universities and replaced with le master which takes two years... confusing stuff. I have no idea how many A-levels make a bac, if you've been to university nobody seems to ask.

...and when I was in west Wales this summer I saw an enormous message daubed in whitewash saying "colonists out", so is it a celtic thing... My French mother in law is from the Ardèche and is always going on about German and Dutch people coming and buying the houses there and putting the prices up.  Apparently she used to say the exact same thing about English people, until she had one in the family.

A (very) minor consideration when we chose to get married in England rather than France is that neither of us fancied having the blood test!  This is obligatory in France and seemed to me to be a pitfall!