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Plain nasty


Aly
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It does illustrate the principal that you can be fined for not paying tax on an employee that they deem you should have employed even when patently your situation was one of never being able to afford an employee.

I bet they both work all the hours god gives for very little return like most commerçiants.

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Yep, plain nasty.

I always look for another angle, something I may have missed, I no longer drink but when I did visit bars in France you were charged a lower price if you went and ordered at the bar and took your drink to the table than if you were a group and the patron or serveur/serveuse came and took the order and brought the drinks out.

I always returned my empty glass for a refill or when I left, I suspect others left their final glass on the table.

How could you run a traditional english bar in France? You know one with good looking and fun bar staff, one that has a good atmosphere and is packed with serious drinkers that dont want to wait to be served?

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On the face of it it is plain nasty.

It's always possible there's more to it than meets the eye. An awful lot of bars and small restaurants do have potmen and pay them cash and everybody knows they do. Maybe URSSAF decided it was time to hang somebody out in public to give out a message. Maybe URSSAF knew something, it isn't unusual for competitors to give them information. One of my 2 local pizzerias had students wiping the tables and washing up for free pizza and a few drinks, sure enough a few weeks after the arrangement started the gendarmes turned up, obviously the other pizza place had tipped them off. The owners got off with a warning but if it had gone to court I'm sure they would have thought up with the best sob story they could think of because that is what you do. So I don't altogether swallow this at face value. However if all is as it seems, it is despicable.
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We will never know the full story, but I would hazard a guess that there was something else going on that couldnt quite be proven satisfactorily, so URSSAF have hammered them over this just to get them for something.

As for being tipped off - yep, definately. Obviously I cant speak for everywhere in France, but in my area there are many, many people who take great delight in denouncing others simply because they can and it seems to please them to stir up official trouble for others even if they are far from clean themselves.

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When my son worked in a restaurant in a tourist area, the man who owned the bar next door was fined by the URSSAF as his parents gave him a hand, but they were not on the books....... they did give a good hand incidentally, they worked about 12 hours a day, like he did, during the summer months.

There are so many rules and regulations about things that nothing would surprise me....... and as a friend who works in a pay office said, the URSSAF will always find something, and it felt to them that each URSSAF fonctionnaire put their own spin on the rules.

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Of course the reason so many bars and restos do this, is that cotisations make labour so expensive that they simply cannot afford to (officially) employ the staff they need to keep the place running. Same old, same old. People can only afford to give so much to the state before their business become unviable, but the state wants more.
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Dave 21478 wrote :there are many, many people who take great delight in denouncing others

simply because they can and it seems to please them to stir up official

trouble for others even if they are far from clean themselves.

This seems to be a very common thing to do wherever you are in France ... It results in people living in fear of saying or doing anything that may cause someone to pick up the phone and drop you in it

The belief that someone may be doing better than they are ...even if not true   Seems to kick the denunciation gene into overdrive . The fear of even opening a shop door a moment before time to let customers waiting outside, in the cold ,to enter. Even causes fear of being reported by other shop owners who will claim unfair advantage  This results in staff and customers lined up looking at each other through a glass door watching the clock.. Its not a nice way to live your life IMO and causes people to choose their friends in France carefully .

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It is strange isn't it, but it seems to be a kind of ongoing cat and mouse game. There's a retired artisan in our village who still does work for cash, he's a top craftsman and he's done jobs for me, and in the bar of an evening he's pointed out to me several people who he says would report him if they had proof - yet he chats to them in the bar as if they were his best mates. He told me that if I want anything doing I have to ring him and invite him to my house 'pour un apéro' and he'll know that I want him to price up a job, so I laughed and said why, do you think your phone's tapped? and he looked at me as if I was fresh off the boat and said Well of course it is. I was fresh off the boat and I thought he was paranoid but I've come to realise that probably he isn't.
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What is plain nasty is the penalty of €8K IIRC which is out of all proportion to the alleged offence and which they still reclaim even though the court has decided there is no case to answer.

What is wrong with just leaning on the proprietor a little? Having a quiet word in his ear, "someone has reported you to us and whilst we havnt caught you with your pants fully down yet, its only a question of time, we know, and you know that the complaint is not without foundation, we will be keeping a close eye on you from now on so you are advised keep your nose clean.

Oh and the bâtard that denounced you is......................

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On the same news was the story of a motorist who was rammed from behind and damaged DDE equipment on the road. The other motorist legged it. Damaged car was repaired by the owners insurance. Dossier closed. 18 mths later, the DDE are after the owner for the damage done to the barriers/signs etc, in excess of 25000 euros. As the insurance company have already done their bit and closed the dossier, he will have to pay.

Worth remembering if things other than your car is damaged.
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It's a topsy-turvy world. Obviously, as far as URSSAF are concerned, these people are doing someone out of a job, hence saving themselves money, and by default, saving themselves tax and social charges. So they should be employing someone at a cost of x and URSSAF  are determined to get the x by any means at their disposal. Crazy.

A local business near us (by complete coincidence, the owners are a couple, he English, she French) is a bar/tabac/general store. The current owners took it over a couple of years ago, and started (or rather, re-started) a restaurant service at lunchtime only. All good so far. They were doing really well, and running the place with 3 staff, the third staff member being their daughter. So, three people at lunchtime to manage a bar, restaurant, tabac and shop. Already quite a big ask, but the lunchtime period was their busy time. Fixed menu, buffet entree, two choices of plat and a couple of desserts. For their little village, it was a much-needed facility and a real injection of life, as word got around and more people began to call in for a simple lunch.

The restaurant is closed again now: The little blackboard they put outside proclaimed " We will no longer be offering a restaurant service at lunchtime- merci URSSAF!". The increase in their charges that was imposed meant that they were forced to get rid of their own daughter, and it was physically impossible for just two of them (with him cooking) to run the whole business.

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I read the article on a French news site, something didnt add up, the vehicle was struck from behind with enough force causing it to roll 3 times [blink]

Lets just look at that in isolation, the amount of force to do that would kill the occupants of both vehicles instantly, however a vehicle being driven at the limit of its adhesion on a dry bend or even canging lane on a straight road in an exaggerated manner (a local favorite) will both cause the car to roll several times.

And then there was the other car that allegedly hit this one with such a force (a fatal force IMO) that drove away from the scene [:-))]

Finally the photograph shown of the vehicle when it had come to rest did not show any significant damage to the rear of the vehicle consistent with a normal roll over situation, it was roof and sides.

OK maybe they used a library picture but it got me thinking.

Could it possibly be anything to do with the French system of "I will pretend its not my fault and porter plainte contra X" which pays out for your vehicle without loss of bonus?

If all the above is correct then I think the highways agency are right to pursue the driver or his insurance company, maybe they (the insurers) are the second villain of the piece? Highly believeable in France, coupled with a culture of "if the person or body responsible cant or wont pay then I will make someone else do so".

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All of which goes to show the gap between the State and the people in this country. There is no trust, taxation is seen as a right, even, in this case, as a punishment. The State impedes its citizens from making their livings, and some of its fonctionnaires are clearly out of control.

Which makes France a failed state, perhaps not in the sense that Somalia might be, but in the sense of the divorce which I have just described.

Under thses circumstances, how can this country hope to give leadership to Europe, be a model for the superstate. Better Europe turn elsewhere, but where?
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[quote user="Chancer"]

What is wrong with just leaning on the proprietor a little? Having a quiet word in his ear, "someone has reported you to us and whilst we havnt caught you with your pants fully down yet, its only a question of time, we know, and you know that the complaint is not without foundation, we will be keeping a close eye on you from now on so you are advised keep your nose clean.

[/quote]

This is how it should work, particularly in a case such as this where - at face value - it appears the infringement was technical and inadvertent. But to what extent is it wise to give bureaucrats discretion to decide when to impose the rules? Not easy.

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And lets not forget the total lack of initiative in the average French person, tell them that they have a free hand within clearly defined limits and to use their discretion and most would be completely flummoxed and ask what to do in every instance.

Reminds me of a management phrase from years back, "never delegate tasks only responsibilities", doesnt seem to be the French way.

When the use of enterprise and initiative is viewed as a sacking offence within French officialdom I guess its inevitable that people using those attributes to make their honest living would be viewed as the enemys of the state.

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I had to read up on the film, I'm assuming it was Brazil and you were using the French spelling (I also often do)

Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four,[1][2] except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure.

Now where does that remind me of..........................................

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[quote user="Chancer"]

I had to read up on the film, I'm assuming it was Brazil and you were using the French spelling (I also often do)

Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four,[1][2] except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure.

Now where does that remind me of..........................................

[/quote]

Pretty much everywhere with an established civil service, I'd say. Except possibly Scandinavia. And there I'm only guessing.

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