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Hopefully moving to France this year


stumpy
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Well were hopefully moving to France at present i am a hgv tanker driver for sewage firm ,What i would like to know is  what is the maine drainage company in France and who empties the fosse companies ,farmers or who? thanks for your help .Andy
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My wife hasnt thought what she wants to do yet but at the moment she is a Sister on a special baby unit and is so demoralised the NHS she dosent want to nurse anymore ! so she just want's to clean caravans or work in shops or just about anything really  

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From another thread and with thanks to SD. Don't know quite how or even if it applies to what you plan to do in France but might be worth noting the min requirements at the end, good luck

[quote]"Your UK "Class 1" is a category C+E licence which is the same as category E(C) in France, ie. vehicle with a PTAC >3.5 tonnes and trailer > 750kg.

All licences issued by an EU state are valid in all other EU states. You may exchange your UK licence for a French one if you wish and you will receive the same entitlements as on your existing licence.

If you are a UK based driver, you are regarded as a foreign driver and you may drive in France on your UK licence and you remain subject to normal UK LGV training/qualification requirements.  If you are resident in France, however, then you are regarded as a "french" driver and as such, there are additional training/qualification requirements, not all of which may apply to you.

FIMO: Formation Initial Minimum Obligatoire (obligatory minimum initial training) - 4 week initial commercial driver training course, obligatory for all new  LGV licence holders.

CFP:  Certificat de Formation Professionel (Professional Driver Diploma) - 350 hours training with choice of diploma in delivery driving/long distance(artics)/dangerous materials. Diploma recognised as a key qualification by French transport companies. Given that these days, you can take your Class 1/E(C) test using a 10 tonne rigid with a 1 tonne drawbar trailer, I would think the the CFP artic qualification would be a routine requirement for finding employment driving artics, although your UK experience may cover this.

FCOS: Formation Continue Obligatoire de Securite (obligatory continuous safety training ) - 3 day course every five years covering general road safety, current regulations, etc.  Attestation issued on successful completion.

Note: A minimim requirement for the above is the ability to read and write in French and perform simple mathematic calculations (addition, subtraction, multiplication,division)[/quote]

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[quote user="ErnieY"]

From another thread and with thanks to SD. Don't know quite how or even if it applies to what you plan to do in France but might be worth noting the min requirements at the end, good luck

[quote]"Your UK "Class 1" is a category C+E licence which is the same as category E(C) in France, ie. vehicle with a PTAC >3.5 tonnes and trailer > 750kg.

All licences issued by an EU state are valid in all other EU states. You may exchange your UK licence for a French one if you wish and you will receive the same entitlements as on your existing licence.

If you are a UK based driver, you are regarded as a foreign driver and you may drive in France on your UK licence and you remain subject to normal UK LGV training/qualification requirements.  If you are resident in France, however, then you are regarded as a "french" driver and as such, there are additional training/qualification requirements, not all of which may apply to you.

FIMO: Formation Initial Minimum Obligatoire (obligatory minimum initial training) - 4 week initial commercial driver training course, obligatory for all new  LGV licence holders.

CFP:  Certificat de Formation Professionel (Professional Driver Diploma) - 350 hours training with choice of diploma in delivery driving/long distance(artics)/dangerous materials. Diploma recognised as a key qualification by French transport companies. Given that these days, you can take your Class 1/E(C) test using a 10 tonne rigid with a 1 tonne drawbar trailer, I would think the the CFP artic qualification would be a routine requirement for finding employment driving artics, although your UK experience may cover this.

FCOS: Formation Continue Obligatoire de Securite (obligatory continuous safety training ) - 3 day course every five years covering general road safety, current regulations, etc.  Attestation issued on successful completion.

Note: A minimim requirement for the above is the ability to read and write in French and perform simple mathematic calculations (addition, subtraction, multiplication,division)[/quote]

[/quote]

thats very helpful  thanks i will take that onboard ,as for the waste we in Cornwall deliver it to a field by Newquay and a farmer plows it in to the field and it becomes inactive with in two days !!but when in France i dont yet know how they get rid so might be poo on the cob

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Apart from the main one learn French ,what do you need to work in France .

Do you need a permit or a national insurance number, do you pay taxes how do you pay taxes what would i need to work over there .Any advice greatfully recived .[:D]

 

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Ah yes we pay taxes. If you move in 2007 then in springtime 2008 you will have to pick up a form from your tax office or Mairie and get the form in by a specific date. The tax year goes from 1st Jan to 31st Dec. They are talking about PAYE, but at the moment, we pay a year in arrears.

You will get a social security number too one way or another. Your E form will start that process off. E forms are from Newcastle.

Methinks you need to have a good old nosey through this board, go back over the last few years in the finance and health sections. Most things are explained there.

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I seem to remember reading that sometime soon (could even have been sine 1.1.07) the emptying of fosses was going to be tightly controlled and that only registered companies would be allowed to do it = more French bureaucracy - and that disposal would be tightly controlled = corn back on the menu.
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Well, Andy, that would make a lot of sense in our area - what with every farmer having a huge open slurry pit next to his milking shed which he empties and spreads over his fields, the roads, passing cars etc!

You'd have to laugh, if you weren't breathing through a handkerchief.

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Stumpy - I don't mean to be unkind, but on another part of the forum you are saying that you are moving to France to get away from problems in England.  I've lived most of my life in Cornwall - a lovely place - and now live where you want to SW France - also a lovely place.  If you don't want to have far more problems than you have already I suggest you do a huge amount of homework.  Getting a job in Cornwall (difficult for the UK) is child's play compared with getting a job here.  Speaking French is essential and even if you already did a job in England it does not mean they will let you do it here without French connections and qualifications.  Unless your wife enjoyed cleaning caravans in England there is no reason why she will enjoy it here - even if she can find someone to employ her.  Boring work is just that ANYWHERE.  You are uprooting your family to move to a system which you know so little you need to ask whether people pay tax - actually we don't but we pay huge amounts of social charges which mean we are too poor to pay tax.

Sorry if I sound horrid but your postings are naive beyond belief.  I'm not saying don't move here, I did, so who am I to criticise - but I came here speaking French and with a business in mind.  Even so it has been really hard and we have no children to support either financially or morally.  This is NOT a cheap, crime free paradise.  There is quite a bit more sunshine than Cornwall, but it is also often much colder and heating costs.   There are not the scandal rags so much crime goes scarcely reported, but it still exists. 

People reading this forum often criticise those who have lived here a while for being cynical - but believe me you'll stand a great deal more chance of making a go of it if you take off the blinkers.

Maggi

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Dick, the 'huge open slurry pit' is something that is part of the current 'mise en normes' that farmers are having to carry out under European legislation. Our dairy farming neighbour uses a recently installed system that he is very proud of and is supposedly state-of-the-art in such things. At one end of his cowshed is a big block-built cistern with opening ports at the bottom. Twice he day he opens the ports and the water from the cistern rushes down the slight slope on which the shed is built, carefully channelled by kerbstones so that it washes the poo from where the cows stand (and is kept away from the feeding troughs etc). The water and poo goes into one shallow pit, where the solids settle to the bottom and the liquid drains into another deep pit. Liquid from the second pit (less most of the solids but with a fair bit of smelly stuff held in suspension) is pumped back up to the cistern, ready for the next flush. When the solid matter (supposedly biologically degraded so it is good for fertiliser) has accumulated sufficiently in the first pit, it gets scooped out and is spread on the fields to be used for maize, wheat or whatever he is going to grow for next year's cattle feed.

It's very effective, but also extremely smelly, and the environmental benefits are rather hard to see (or smell).

Sorry to get slightly off topic - I think Brussels views household waste rather differently from agricultural. Certainly the companies that empty septic tanks round our way are tightly controlled already (or so the chap told us last time he emptied ours). Because most of the tanks are in fairly inaccessible positions you would need quite a small lorry and a lot of hose. There is no national drainage or waste disposal policy - these things tend to organised locally and there is quite a bit of regional variation.

Edit - Cerise posted while I was writing this. (S)he talks a lot of sense, though perhaps I would not go quite as far as that. It is very true though that you need to move to France for positive reasons (i.e. you like French life) rather than negative ones (i.e. you don't like England). Personal problems tend to stay with you, or follow you, wherever you are, and after the honeymoon period is over you will find that France has its ills just as Britain does (many of them are the same ones). Moreover, the French ills come in a different language (which is why so many people do not see them until it is too late) and with a lot more paperwork. [:)]

Nobody is saying don't move to France, just make sure you do your homework and you do it for the right reasons.

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I seem to remember reading that sometime soon (could even have been sine 1.1.07) the emptying of fosses was going to be tightly controlled and that only registered companies would be allowed to do it = more French bureaucracy - and that disposal would be tightly controlled = corn back on the menu.

 

absolutely right and all part of cleaning up la belle France and ultimately making it "tout a l'egout"

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Hi

The crime is much worse over in Cornwall than western France , where I have a house ,I have not seen any crime at all ,but then again I am not over there all the time.........On the end of my road there is roof tiles/trailers etc they have been undisturbed for at least three years , in Cornwall they would have disapeared in a day...

Good luck to anyone who moves over...

He who dares wins....[:D]

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Just going back to the fosse emptying - yes it is great if you have a friendly local farmer to do it - but they don't have the equipment to jet spray clean the pipes which can get incredibly blocked with grease etc. I don't know if there is a new law in place but I always get ours done professionally now - there is nothing worse than having fosse contents coming up in the downstairs showers of the gites.....[+o(]

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The OH has just done his FIMO and FCOS - you need to be able to read and write French reasonably well. His firm very obligingly arranged for one of the office staff to sit in with him to translate anything he wasnt sure about. You also have to do a1hr 30 min driving test! He was well chuffed as he got higher marks than the French drivers who sat the exam with him! 
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[quote user="dandaz"]Hi

The crime is much worse over in Cornwall than western France , where I have a house ,I have not seen any crime at all ,but then again I am not over there all the time.........On the end of my road there is roof tiles/trailers etc they have been undisturbed for at least three years , in Cornwall they would have disapeared in a day...

Good luck to anyone who moves over...

He who dares wins....[:D]


[/quote]

 

 

Crime in Cornwall?

Gad sir - you could have you passport taken away for such disloyal sentiment :-))

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The crime is much worse over in Cornwall than western France , where I have a house ,I have not seen any crime at all ,but then again I am not over there all the time.........

 

Dan

maybe you don't have time to sit and read the Sud-Ouest newspaper when you are in France but I can assure you that contrary to popular belief there is always some crime or other reported there, some rather petty and some of it is not very nice[:(].

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Well maybe I was just lucky but all the years I lived in Cornwall I had no problems.  Of course there was crime, there is everywhere, but not huge amounts.  Not huge amounts here either, but I'm not keen to park my car in certain parts of Montauban or Toulouse.  A few weeks after we moved here I borrowed a friend's estate car and left it locked outside the house.  Now we live IN the village which is about 45 km from a town and more importantly a long way from a gendarmerie.  In the night the car was stolen and used as the getaway car in an armed robbery (we know as we eventually got the car back).  Very embarrassing when it is your friend's car!!   Some friends with a holiday home here have been broken into 3 times.  Yes there are piles of building materials around that never seem to get touched but only last week a number of cars were broken into and stolen in the village.  Those who think there is no crime either don't read, the papers, don't go down the boulangerie for the gossip, or simply don't want to know.  Rural France has less crime than urban England but I wouldn't bet on Marseille having less crime than Manchester.
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When

I first got into my property in France my next doors were horified me

making fences/gates securing things for all my stuff ,they did`nt even

understand ,what the lock was for on my caravan tow hitch...

After

3 years I tend to agree with them ,I did see someone arrest a

shoplifter in the supermarket in the nearest city but that is about

it...We are pretty rural so that will make a big difference....

I

went on a bike ride once and saw a few children playing by a stream

they must have been less that seven ,not a adult in sight and miles

away from anything ,it took me back to my childhood ,where we could

play without a care in the world...[8-|]

I don`t even let my kids out in Cornwall , but would in France....

Cornwall /England has changed alot...
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[quote user="Linda P"]The OH has just done his FIMO and FCOS - you need to be able to read and write French reasonably well. His firm very obligingly arranged for one of the office staff to sit in with him to translate anything he wasnt sure about. You also have to do a1hr 30 min driving test! He was well chuffed as he got higher marks than the French drivers who sat the exam with him! [/quote]

Congratulations to him, Linda, you must both be very proud - deservedly so!

Sue  [:D]

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