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City and Guilds - Recognised for French enterprise?


Victor Meldrew
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Not sure if this is under the corect forum but here goes.

Up until the end of last year I had an enterprise registered here in France as Renovation du Batiment, but found the general spec to be too broad. The decennal insurance (multi risk) together with the cotisations were just crippiling and even with plenty of work I found that I could not turn it around fast enough to make it pay.

The CdeM told me that should I wish to reopen an enterprise there would not be a problem I just need to let them know and start again. However I am now thinking that I would be better specialising in just one trade rather than a bit of everything and to this end have been looking at City and Guilds electrician courses in the UK to gain the necessary qualifications to trade as a domestic electrician although I do know my way around French electrics.

Does anyone have any experience of using these qualifications here in France, getting decennal insurance with C&G certs, knowing what courses would be necessary to go on here in France (if any) to basically convert to French norms and to change the spec of an Enterprise.  

Any advice gratefully appreciated.

Regards

Victor    

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I can't speak for the electrician C&G qualifications, but my OH registered 18 months ago as a menuisier with his C&G carpentry & joinery certificates; They had to be translated by an official translator ( we used an English guy in another department, I can give you his details if you PM me), but they were accepted by the CdM without any problem. He also has decennal insurance; again, no problem with having english qualifications.

Makes a refreshing change.

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Your cotisations are based on income so I would imagine they would not change if your turnover and profit is similar in a new venture compared to your current one

I am registered for plumbing, heating, air conditioning, gas etc and my public liability and decennal insurance costs me 3000 euros a year

Apart from an apprentice in training any extra employee will increase the insurance costs considerably

I suggest you do some research before making the change as you may find it will make no difference to the ultimate margin you make

I don't know how long you have been in business but it takes 3 years before your cotisations stabilise and remain approximately the same year on year

Le Plombier

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To trade as a domestic electrician in France it is acceptable if you have undertaken and passed a UK Part P course.

The course is usually of one weeks duration and is available at a number of colleges etc. I think The Builder Centre at Croydon did these courses.

As for official translations etc etc it really depends on your particular departments / Chambre de Metier / etc views or even if you catch them on a good day?

Decennal insurance is not always required - again it depends on your APE code - as far as public liability insurance goes which is probably more important from a personal perspective there are only a handful of companies who will deal with you and have something of a monopoly. We got ours by opening a new business account with Bank Populaire whihc was about the only way we could get it.

Good luck anyway (PS: you could become an installer for us with a lot less hassle??)

Regards

Marc

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