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fred
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as my first post has been deleted i thought id answer here,first of all its just a name get over it and buy yourself a sense of humour!,please dont comment on why i ended up in France as frankly its none of your business!needless to say it wasnt up to me to move here,circumstances prevailed.At the time my french was very limited and nobody in authority seemed willing to help or give advice in fact one "official " told me "it would be better if you go home"...Im just shocked how many Brits on here would happily see someone like myself (who was struggling at the time)out of house and probably doing time simply because im trying to put food on the table,from this i can only assume that most of you are affluent and dont understand the meaning of "being skint".Im sorry if my first post annoyed anybody but i find it hard to fathom the reason behind wanted to grass on a fellow brit who is only doing wot i can to survive,i can only pressume this "elitist" forum is not for myself as i dont own a rolls royce!get over yourself people...

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If you want to post on this forum its essential that you change your forum name or further postings will be deleted as this one will be in a few minutes.

If you have a point or gripe you can make it more effectively by trying not to rant and staying within the forum Code of Conduct and not making groundless, lazy assumptions about people you don't know.

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Still trying to take the piss, I was going to post in support of your point (but not your rant) before your and others posts were deleted so excuse me for understanding your predicament. Take a chill pill calm down pick a name less provocative and join in any debate you wish.

Really I thought it was Verbal Kint?

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Yes I can understand, I could have easily been in the same situation but dashed back to the UK before I overcommitted myself and O/H.  How many people would turn criminal in the same situation? Choice between starvation and law breaking on a minor scale easy decision. Of course you take a risk but after a careful risk assessment you do exactly what countless French people have done, still do.
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Years ago we had a lady on this forum who had bought a wreck of a house in France and her and her husband were due to move, literally the day before they were going, and with her UK house sold, her marriage collapsed. She went ahead with the move with her two small children. Within a few months her house in France had been deemed uninhabitable and her local community rehomed her and paid her an allowance too....it looked pretty bleak but there was help available - are you sure you explored all avenues ?
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[quote user="Russethouse"]Years ago we had a lady on this forum who had bought a wreck of a house in France and her and her husband were due to move, literally the day before they were going, and with her UK house sold, her marriage collapsed. She went ahead with the move with her two small children. Within a few months her house in France had been deemed uninhabitable and her local community rehomed her and paid her an allowance too....it looked pretty bleak but there was help available - are you sure you explored all avenues ?[/quote]at the time (like i said this was a few years ago now)i felt i had tried all of the angles available to me but felt i kept hitting a "brick wall",my french is actually ok(ish) like in said in an earlier post i was even told "it would be better if you went home",it got to the point where i didnt have the petrol in the car to even get to the rsa,urssaf et al ,the offices are 45 minutes away from where i live!!

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Well despite your assumptions about the members here, actually they are a very supportive group if you have a problem, providing that you write it in a reasonable way that they can understand.... only this week one member made seven phone calls and sent an email to the relevant authority to get to the bottom of one matter. Its a shame you didn't find the forum sooner....So,  why not tell us a little bit (you don't need to be too detailed) what is your situation now ? Children at school, working, region you live in (no need to be too specific) etc, how did it all work out - or did you go home ?
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Be interesting to learn more fully your story, with the bad weather I may have skipped by the thread.

But I have restarted the big disc top computer again and I am gradually working through the hundreds of items on my Windows Mail Software.

I notice scrolling down the email titles where I note a number headed "no reply archant". I'll check them later.Probably another clutch of deleted posts to enfuriate me.

I speak good french and would be pleased to advice or help in any small way possible. Friendly regards.

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Fred, or whatever your name is, reading your new posting it reads that you did this for a short time so presume that you are now legit, something that your original post certainly did not convey to me.

For every person that may have worked on the black for a short time it would seem that there are a great many that work on the black permanently because it gives them more money - they do not pay tax etc - and this puts them at an extremely unfair advantage to those, be they British, French, Martian etc, who are paying taxes and cositations etc. So these take the bread out of the mouths of those who are working, or trying to work because they cannot compete, with those on the black.

I would think that legitimate workers irrespective of their nationality would shop someone working on the black irrespective of their nationality.

Perhaps for the Brits who actually live in France if it is perceived that the majority of brit tradespeople are working on the black then a stigma will be attached to all Brits.

Paul

 

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Fred, most Brits in France, as are members of this forum and other similar French forums, tend to be either retirees or second home owners and more often than not are far from affluent. (According to Eurostat there are only around 30,000 Brits working in France, which is a small percentage of the number of Brits who are estimated to own homes there.)

In fact it is self evident from a lot of posts that a significant number of Brits struggle to live in France, as either they are on a low fixed pension income that has fallen greatly in euro terms in recent years with the weak £, or if they are still of working age they cannot find adequate work in France. Don't forget that unemployment in France is higher than the UK. The result of this is a high return rate to the UK, especially for those Brits that need to earn a living in France, which some estimate to be as high as 85%.

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I help people, always have. In fact I have just got back from the Post Office. The clerk handed  me some money that had been left for me,  I had given it to a pensioner a few weeks ago as the poor soul couldn't remember his pin number and couldn't leave him unable to get his shopping......... I had written it off.

I'm not rich, at all, we manage, just about. And I didn't move to France speaking french, something that I remedied as soon as I could. But no one makes us move and truth is that if you are working on the black in theory you are taking work from someone working legally. And going off on one because you think that there is some right for a brit to do this, well  won't wash with me. And yet as I said, I don't mind a little work on the side, I think that it makes cash swan around an economy.

Every time you work on the black, someone working legally will never ever been able to match your price. And if you were legal, how would you feel. And it is not just the money, you are not insured, have you not understood that. Your work is not guaranteed and the people employing you are also at risk from proscecution and fines. Grow up and stop insulting anyone on here. Yes, there are lots of UK retirees in France, but there are also those who are trying to make a legitimate living and get their pensions etc and you are undermining them.

Now if you had said, I cannot get any money from the state, my unemployment as run out, something that I understand completely, because I was in France so darned long. And you had asked, how can I get money, then maybe I would feel inclined to help and call a few numbers.

What about the RSA and the CAF and the assistante sociale? Last week on french tv there were two ladies living in their cars, and the weather last week was very very cold. Life is hard for french people, never mind brits who chose to move to France, where I always considered myself a guest.

 

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thanks for all the answers and im sorry if i threw all my toys out of my pram earlier!but at the time it felt like i was being treated like a leper!!and it was all very real too me at the time ,its not nice being that broke and being pushed from pilar to post,being told come back at the start of the year etc etc!I didnt come here to live on handouts and tbh i never asked for any ,im no spounger,i will say no more about the subject other than i totally agree with wots been posted here about taking someones job etc etc but the fact is it was the mairie who gave me the work!!needless to say this was 7/8 years ago and im happily settled now ,kids at school etc and im working paying my dues etc,but im still appalled by the fact that there are members(british!!) here who would of had me in prison/fined etc just for doing at the time wot seemed nessacary(im betting your not all "snow white"),would you see your kids starve?... i thought not ...shame on you.. ;please try and see the other side of things before looking down from your ivory tower and try to ruin somebodys life !as we havent all got "second" house or a pension to fall back on..fred...ps can i have herbal kint back,i kinda liked it!!

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 Fred is just fine [:)]

Sometimes people have posted here in a similar situation and they are there because they did pay all their cotisations  etc so you can hardly expect them to be overly generous to someone who didn't.

I'm glad its all behind you now, given your experience if you stick around maybe you will be able to help out someone else on the forum in a similar situation....

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Hm.....do I comment or not?

I read some of the stuff this morning before I went out for the day and now I am back home, reasonably warmed up, and have seen some dear friends who are trying desperately to survive in a garage which they have used as a home for over 5 years.

They have a "business", registered, etc etc.  They went to check up on a house that we shall be selling, totally unasked, because they knew that the snow prevented us from going ourselves.

We left them some money and walked away before they could refuse it.  Virtually the last thing she said to me was, "I can understand why some people work on the black."

So, there you are....out of the mouth of someone who is daily facing the reality of working all hours, some of the work cash-in-hand of course, but paying cotisations, accountant, etc.  Honest as the day is long and ever ready to help someone out.

Fred, I fully understand and I think you are in fact very brave to come out and say what you were forced to do.  I tell you, if I had children who were hungry, I'd doing ANYTHING to feed them.

I wouldn't care if I had to prostrate myself, take any amount of humiliation and indignity, possibly kill (I don't know, not been tested) to ensure their survival.

I am with you 100%! 

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