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Moving to France from South Africa


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My husband and I would like to move to France in the next 2 to 3 years perhaps sooner depending on circumstances. We will be looking very seriously over the next few months for property there. Given the declining exchange rate of our currency (Rand) we aim to move quickly and will be looking for a modest abode. I have read some of the postings on non EU and residency, but could not relate. What are the pre-requisites for living in France as a non-EU member? How easy is it to buy property there? What is the health system like and can you gain access via health insurance or medical aid? What are living costs like? Where is the best place to buy for good weather, relatively good transport and friendly people?

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Welcome to the Forum.

So many questions!  Narrowing it down to weather, as that is one crtierion that changes from place to place, what sort of weather do you like?  Hot, cold, mild, fresh air, snow, mediterranean, continental, maritime?  Then we can say which region suits.

 

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Hi Cathy, thanks for the response. We love warm weather, cannot do cold, wet and snow for protracted periods. (despite us having had three weeks of uninterrupted rain in SA in January). We both are very outdoors people who enjoy gardening, walking, swimming and generally being able to get out and about regularly.
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I can't tell you much about the health care from a non EU citizen's point of view.  However, you do have to have private cover when you arrive, and must keep it on at least until you gain the right to reside.  I have anecdotal evidence only that some people manage to get into the state system (a paying-in stystem based on your income, and which system you are in and how much you pay depends on whether you are employed or not) once they have gained the residency rights required (titre de sejour) but how this is done, I do not know.

There are some fora based in the US for American citizens looking to move here, and those who have already done so.  I imagine that their situation is similar.  I'll try to find some for you.

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[quote user="Tania"]Hi Cathy, thanks for the response. We love warm weather, cannot do cold, wet and snow for protracted periods. (despite us having had three weeks of uninterrupted rain in SA in January). We both are very outdoors people who enjoy gardening, walking, swimming and generally being able to get out and about regularly.[/quote]

Much of France is warm or hot in the summer.  So it's probably going to be winter weather that will be the decider.  Cold excludes you from most regions of France as it is very cold in the winter, especially at night.  The warmest places in winter are all along the west coast (maritime influence) and the south east coast (mediterranean influence).  Wet excludes you from the north west e.g. Brittany.  Snow excludes you from the Pyrennes in the south west and the Alps in the east.  That leaves two areas:  the mediterranean area to the south east (but watch the Mistral winds that come down the Rhone valley) and the south west coastal coniferous forests, the area in which I live.

On a map, look between the town of Soulac-sur-Mer (near the Gironde) right down the south west coast to Biarritz.  The coast is miles and miles of golden sand (which the western winds across the Atlantic have whipped up into large sand dunes) and inland, there are man-made coniferous forests, interspersed with marshland (watch out for mosquitoes) and heathland.  This is a generalisation but you get the picture.  If you are right on the coast, you will find it very windy.  Most people live inland, protected by forests.

You can't "swim" in the Atlantic Ocean, unless you go out beyond the breakers.  You can have a great deal of fun, though, jumping the waves.  It is dangerous and in the summer, most places have supervised sections of beach.  As far as I know, you can swim in the Mediterreanean Sea, where the tidal influence is minimal.  But someone else would have to tell you about that area.

 

 

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Jambo Tania, habari! I hate to be the negative one (many will disagree) but there are some points for you to consider. The main one being that Sth Af's have a hard time getting a visa to come here. We receive a lot of bookings from South African people to stay with us and then are not able to come because they are not able to obtain a Schengen Visa; and I am mostly referring to Sth Africans just living in the UK. People from South Africa tend to have particular difficulties in this purpose.  If you wish to live in France then obtaining the right to settle here has to be your first port of call. Do either of you have Irish parents/grandparents OR European born parents? if so then it may be possible.

If not then I suspect you will have your work cut out for you coming to live here. It will be incredibly difficult otherwise.

My three eldest sons' father is Sth African born and yet will need to use his Australian passport when he plans to come visit them...simply because coming here as a Sth Af would be all that more difficult. I do not know why they are so hard on the South Africans here, but they are. Well, in a way I do, but maybe I should not state it here. In short, they tend to arrive and not leave; many white South Africans are leaving their country for certain reasons these days ( I know, I have ex in-laws there) and other countries know this...

Personally I don't like your chances. Just being realistic and honest[:)]

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Because if you have an Irish parent/grandparent you can then obtain an Irish passport and Irish citizenship. This will enable you to settle in an EU country as an EU citizen. It is by far the easiest option for anyone wanting to live in France. Applying as a South African citizen is just about a no-goer; I know two South African guys who live here but they married French women.
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Sanibonani Tania,

Don't be put off by negative comments.

Lots of Non-Eu nationals need a Visa for France,  South Africa is not alone.  But long-term planning is necessary.  I would also suggest you attempt to establish if you have grandparents born in the EU.  Or, short-term living in the UK - easier to acquire EU  status.- 4 years,  I think, at present.  Loads of SA citizens in the UK, (quite a few in France too) many with top jobs, often heard on the TV/Radio, but you do have to grit your teeth in winter.    Parts of France as cold - or colder. Certainly compared  with Durban/JHB which we were used to!

Happy to discuss further is you want to PM me.

Bonne Chance

Tegwini

 

 

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Look, whether this person speaks Zulu or Swahili makes no difference Tegwini. The fact is that white South Africans do have more hassles coming to visit France, let alone live here. We have been in contact with so many of them to state this fact. Some nationalities are subject to more negative response rather than other's. I was not being so much 'negative' than honest and realistic. Forget about those SA's on the radio or TV who secure residency here via an employer...we are talking about an ordinary couple who want to buy a cute house and live here.

One thing is sure though...no one here in France lives behind barbed wire compounds as opposed to those living in Durban, Cape Town etc.

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Then PM that person my dear if you do not wish a forum answer. A life/future in France should not be based on the climate as you so clearly emphasise. South Africa has a brilliant climate, much like Australia, so I doubt that is why they wish to move here. And it does differ wherever you live here in France do not forget.

The fact is that native born South Africans have a hard time getting a visa to visit here let alone live here...I know this from various points of interest. This couple need to contact the French Embassy in either Durban, Cape Town or Johannesburg FIRST and go from there.

I wish them luck.

 

 

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Jura- I am aware of the PM facility.

Here is rural Wiltshire there are loads of SAfricans - mainly professional people - my dentist, & vet are South Africans, I know specialist medical consultants at the district hospital who qualified there, as well as many in business.  A disproportionately high % of the top jobs in the City of London are held by South Africans.  If they can make it here & acquire UK nationality they can then go to France if they choose to.

The original poster might or might not have these choices- who knows ?    A visa is more difficult to get these days, but thousands managed for the rugby cup final in Paris, and the MIL has been given one even though she's nearly 83.  Since she dislikes the cold she never stays after Autumn. I almost wonder why other Commonwealth countries eg Australia & Canada do not need a visa,  white South Africans, many with French blood, have to have a visa, is it something to do with being in Africa? ...

Tegwini

ps this post is addressed to you Jura.

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[quote user="Jura"]

...no one here in France lives behind barbed wire compounds as opposed to those living in Durban, Cape Town etc.

[/quote]

 

Hi Jura,

 

I would be very interested to learn where these "barbed wire enclosures in Durban, Cape Town etc" are ?  Are you quite sure about this ?

 

Just asking,

 

Cheers

 

ernie 

 

(not ernieY)

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Tegwini,

There is a report in several UK national papers today that may answer your question as to why South African passport holders need visas to visit Europe and other Commonwealth countries like Australia and Canada do not.

The UK home office are quoted as saying that consideration is being given to introducing the need for visas for South African visitors to the UK, as there is an increasing problem of illegal immigrants using South Africa as a gateway into the UK. Apparently, this is an increasing problem with thousands of illegal Indiam immigrants somehow obtaining South African passports to circumvent the visa requirement on Indian visitors to the UK, to travel to the UK through South Africa and then stay illegally.

So the problem does not seem to be be directed at Soth Africans as such, but reflects the fact that S.A does not allegedly have sufficient control over the issue of South African passports.

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Sprogster

Lots of changes in SA - I know, I have heard of illegal immigrants to SA from the rest of Africa - eg Nigeria (many of whom are involved in crime in SA), but I had not heard of Indians from India.  SA has a large Indian population (Hindu & Moslem) brought there by the British 150 yrs ago,  but hadn't heard of Indians from the Indian sub-continent going to SA.

It would be a shame if visas were needed for white SAfricans who have always travelled to the UK & beyond - and for that matter UK citizens who holiday in SA- or buy property there to have to worry about visas.  SA 18yr olds  used to have the rite of passage of travelling, often to the UK,  after completing their Matriculation,  and of course many have parents,  grandparents etc who have UK ancestry even serving in the UK forces in both wars.  

 SA airmen flew in the Battle of Britain, and were part of the 'Great Escape', and of course Field Marshall Smuts was in the British War Cabinet and after WW1 was responsible for setting up the Smuts Commision which founded the RAF.  They were volunteers,  even for WWI  when the British government & Army, only a few years before,  had committed some very serious & tragic mistakes in the concentration camps in 1899-1901  where  40,000  innocent Afrikaner(Boer) women & children died.  I know a man whose Grandma lost almost all her siblings & mother in one of these camps near Bloemfontein- those memories remain with him.

Doubtless PC and the need to be colourblind is forcing such changes. But, I hear of many places in Europe where there are 'open doors' to all kinds of illegal immigrants, most of whom have little chance of supporting themselves and fitting in- unlike South Africans who often do very well indeed. 

One should note that UK/Europe is not the first choice of SAfricans leaving- that is Aus/NZ/USA   -   the UK and certainly France are well down the list!

Tegwini

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Sprogster,

 

Many thanks for that, in fact, I misread the post, mea culpa.

 

Yes, OK, you are quite correct, many whites do live behind razor wire protection, I’ve been there and done that myself.  For example, a friend lives in a remote district on his farm, where 11 farmers were murdered in about 2 years, one for a packet of cigarettes and a mobile phone, plus a couple of Rand.  He has razor wire around the place and so would anyone else, no doubt.

 

But it’s not only whites who live like that, it’s all those who can afford the razor wire protection etc.  This includes black people and people of mixed race (“Coloureds” in official SA terminology).  I can assure you that all those in the black townships would love to have similar protection, as they don’t, they suffer proportionately more than other sections of SA society.

 

Of course the politicians also are well protected.  The president and his ministers had a wall built around their quarters in Pretoria, at a cost of 9 000 000 Rands.  Yes, 9M Rands.

 

The wall was imported from America (I wonder if they managed to get an import permit?)

 

The government has repeatedly denied a crime problem exists, they say it is merely a perception and, of course, blame everything on apartheid, such a useful piece of kit in the armoury.

 

SA is trying to cope with a power shortage (the mines were forced to close down at one point) and it’s all down to rank incompetence, indifference and corruption at the very high levels.  That’s why the Chief Cop in SA is charged with many offences of corruption (he is also head of INTERPOL, I ask you).

 

That’s enough ERNIE

 

e

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  • 2 weeks later...

Actually my white and coloured in-laws all say the same thing...choosing Mandela as leader there was SA's biggest mistake. This country also has the highest rate of child murders than anywhere else in the world. And in 2006 Mandela chose to dismantle the special child protection task force that existed there...due to reasons of 'economy'. This in fact was announced by an award-winning journalist at the VISA Pour L'Image exhibition in Perpignan (exhibition for international photo journalism) who had been specifically investigating for four years the rate of child murders/rapes in that country; both the police in their attempts to curb it and the Mandela Govt's blank refusal to address the problem. On average seven children (under ten) every week are murdered in that country. She stated that the only police who were willing to fight on were doing so completely unpaid and at the expense of their own family lives.

Disgusting. Mandela is not the saint that the world makes him out to be; and time will reveal just how corrupt and hypocritical this so called 'leader of human rights' actually is.

 

 

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What I found so disturbing Tegwini is what this journalist had to say. She had spent a good deal of time investigating the cases of child rapes/murders in SA and had worked alongside the very police who were working to fight all this. Yet, amidst all this horror, Mandela chose to pull the rug out from under them all...because it all cost the Govt too much money to fund.

If I can find the name of this woman I will publish it here. She is an Australian journalist. Naturally, her reports do not attract much interest from those in the UN. Mandela is their 'darling'.

 

 

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Spot on Jura, and yet it is mainly Black children & babies being raped/gang raped - horrific!

The world has lost interest in SA now that the Black majority rules - tragic in Zimbabwe- SA to follow? 

 This is why over a million white, maybe 2 million,  South Africans (& some Indian & Coloured South Africans)  have left, as well as almost all white Zimbabweans.

Amazing how quickly things have changed in southern Africa, but sad ...

tegwini

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Tegwini, Africa as a whole seems to be too much of a problem for the so-called 'world super powers'. They are all more interested in where the oil comes from and who controls it (even though this is a significant issue) than what is happening to women and children on the African continent. They executed Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity in Iraq...yet do not have the testicles to do same to that mass murderer Robert Mugabe; even that vile murderer Idi Amin ended his wretched life in protected exile. The US are pursuing the capture of Osama Bin Laden for his role in killing over 2000 people in September 2001 under the pretence of 'world peace'. What rot.

The people of the continent of Africa obviously do not matter in the bigger scheme of things. There is only one reason why the British and the Americans will not interfere here; race. Neither country wants to pit a white power against a black power. Too many problems would exist back on their home soil as a result. I wonder if Africa held the worlds oil reserves if the story would be so much different. Of course it would!

The sister of my ex-husband visited relatives in Durban last November; she stayed 5 days before cutting things short and returning to Australia. She feared for her own safety.

Africa, all parts of it, has become to the world  the black sheep of the family - we know it exists yet we do our best to ignore it's reality.

 

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Yes  Jura,   I agree, but how awful to sit by & allow Mugabe (or Amin) to murder & ruin a country & do nothing beacause of race or P.C!  You sound as cynical as I am about the role of governments & especially the UK government's role in Africa - or anywhere else for that matter.  They do nothing about human rights in China or Saudi Arabia- too powerful, too useful ?  and SA & Rhodesia were punished as much as possible.   My parents lived in Bulawayo during the terrorist war, my 2 brothers served in the war,  (war of libraration???) and life was better for Blacks then than now, and no one starved.   Britain had war ships off LM to keep out oil tankers with oil destined for Rhodesia.  They punished a tiny country, but do nothing about large powerful countries with murderous dictators- or Blacks killing Blacks.   Look at Darfur now - the Arab/Muslim government commiting genocide in the Christian south, and it is tolerated.

I used to hope that South Africa's mineral wealth would help, but as long as someone mines it , it matters not that chaos is setting in.   Democracy does not work in Africa, tribalism rules & they vote tribally,  Zim is about tribalism- Shona vs Matabele, South Africa is similar. Or,  as Ian Smith said : African democracy = one man, one vote, once.

Sadly, although we give away our rights & tax to our governments they rarely represent our views.  And,  they can barely protect us from terrorism or imported crime these days in some parts of the UK.   In the long run we must look to our own future & security.

Oh,  for a desert island with sunshine &  stuff to eat & something interesting to do...

tegwini

 

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