Brexit - carte de sejour

[chessie]

It's another of those 'what if' questions -

Prior to 2004 (I think) - wasn't it necessary, for eu citizens wishing to live in France that a 'carte de sejour' had to be obtained.   Only after 2004 with the eu Directive on 'freedom of movement' did that no longer apply.

So to those of you who came out here long before 2004 as retired rather than working - how did the process work ?   Was it difficult, complicated, worrying ?

We've had all the 'fear factor fright' comments today about UK citizens, should the UK do a 'brexit' - of not being able to live in France or Spain.   But we've had UK citizens living in France or Spain for many years since the 1960s onwards;  so why was it possible to do so before 2004, and why wouldn't it be posible to go back to the situation as it was before 2004 ?

Chessie

[lindal1000]

My partner lived in France before the EU. It was possible although some things were more difficult, particularly with regard to moving money easily between countries.

If it was decided that carte de sejours were required then it would probably be the same procedure as is currently used for immigrants from non EU Countries. New immigrants would need to prove they had a job or enough money to support themselves and meet the basic language requirements.

[idun]

 Was it hard, yes and no.

We had to get all our certificates officially translated, birth and wedding. And prove income.

And then, after that expense, our first ones were easy to obtain, but the first one, if memory serves, was not valid for very long. However, renewing was OK.

We then moved from a city to a village and then we had problems as following some attentats in Paris, they were then  only valid for 3 months at a time. And after I had been into the Mairie to, yet again, get the renewal, and be given what seemed like a relutant recipisse, lost my temper and had a big row with them, telling them that it was not right or normal.

Called the Prefecture and was told that they were issueing them for 5 years as they had previously and so I told my Mairie and were duly issued with new ones and had no further problems.

Also used to cost us and we had to buy a timbre fiscale from the tabac, not the post office. I think that that eventually stopped and they were free. 

We always renewed, even when they stopped, as they are very handy ID.

IF we moved back, I would get one again, would not hesitate.

[YCCMB]

I had a carte de sejour when I first lived in France. And a "compte etranger" at the bank...for you couldn't just willy-nilly open an account as a foreigner, either.

I doubt there'll be anything stopping people from living elsewhere in Europe in the event of a Brexit, but maybe there'll be other hoops to jump through. Like access to healthcare, if current EU reciprocal arrangements no longer cover people (and I'm not suggesting they won't, but how and for how long is perhaps another question).

We have plenty of people from the UK living abroad, but perhaps more interesting as a question is how many of them are working and how many retired? At the moment, whilst retirees aren't a particularly attractive proposition in terms of their contribution to the overall economy, they're tolerated under EU laws and reciprocal agreements. Unlike, for example, Australia..where you can only retire if you make an investment, you have no entitlement to healthcare and your visa only lasts for 4 years (although you can apply to renew).

I'm not scaremongering. Like 99% of the population, I have no clue what will happen...or even if the overall vote will result in a Brexit. However, I'd say that the question is probably not about whether people can continue to live abroad, but under what conditions.

[NormanH]

The link about getting a carte de séjour for people not in the EU is here:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/N110

It is the Police who deal with it via the préfecture.

As idun says it required proof of identity in the form of translated birth and marriage certificates and those of parents.

Proof of income (over a certain sum)

Proof of health cover: I had to have private health insurance until I had worked enough to get a carte vitale

The main difference between these and asking for double nationality is that there is no requirement for French Language with the carte de séjour, somthing that might be a hurdle for some older Brits

[powerdesal]

Betty wrote '' At the moment, whilst retirees aren't a particularly attractive proposition in terms of their contribution to the overall economy, ''

Surely retirees are an overall net benefit. They bring money into the country and pay tax on it. They spend their (imported) funds in the local economy. They are not a charge on the state for anything because their medical costs are back-charged to the UK. They are not in receipt of any French state benefits.

By contrast, any immigrant who works also pays tax etc but the source of the money is internal to France.

So which party brings the most benefit incomewise.?

[NormanH]

They bring money into the country and pay tax on it.  Not all of them

They spend their

(imported) funds in the local economy.

Partly true, although many import lots of stuff from the UK

 They are not a charge on the

state for anything because their medical costs are back-charged to the

UK. As long as the S1 exists this is true for some of them, but not all.

 They are not in receipt of any French state benefits. Many may well be...see the thread about those who don't have to pay Taxe d'habitation, and others may qualify for other help.

It isn't quite so black and white as you suggest.

[YCCMB]

Norman's sort of made my point. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against pensioners at all...I, too, may live long enough to be a pensioner, if the goalposts don't move any further. However, from a purely economic point of view, pensioners aren't contributing anything to the economy in the form of taxes, cotisations etc., however much they might like to believe otherwise. If their income is low they get rebates on their local taxes, among other things, which, in turn, reduces the overall amount available to local councils for services.

Witness the outcry when access to CMU was removed a few years back. I understand the reason for such an outcry, but in reality, EU legislation saved the bacon of those affected. That pushed a cost back onto the French government.

It seems pensioners get a rather distorted perception of their importance in the scheme of things...but, with an aging population across much of the world, it's them (and just to be clear, I'll be joining them one day not too far away) who are a major drain on the resources of many countries. Like the medical thing: who pays is one issue. Another is that an increasingly disproportionate amount of time and money and general resource is spent on the older members of the population. Being a "charge" is not only about who foots the bill, but about how much of the available resource is being used up by people who aren't adding to the coffers that fund that resource.

As for the other issues, the paltry number of UK pensioners living abroad (and the attraction for most of them in doing so was that it was cheaper...) isn't having much of an effect on the general economy in terms of their spending.

If you go to Leclerc and spend €100 on shopping, and then send a week in hospital, the €100 you spent isn't going to make up for the nurses, doctors and ancillary staff who were looking after you when they could have been looking after a tax-paying younger person. There just aren't enough younger people around to subsidise the expenditure necessary to keep all us oldies going.

[NormanH]

I always said during the CMU debate that Brits who arrive in France late in life and use French medical services can never make up the years of contributions that have been paid by French people and which have built up the infra-structure of the health system here, even if the cost of  a specific treatment is reimbursed for some of them by the UK.

In other words they have missed out the years when you pay and receive little and have jumped in at the point where they cost a lot in treatment.

[andyh4]

Sorry Norman but I just don't follow your logic.

The logic would apply to someone who has worked and lives in the same country. For those with an S1 issued by the UK (or in my case Germany) all costs are directed back to the issuing country. If I cost France 100€, I have to pay 30€ myself or with insurance, and the 70€ gets charged back to Germany. The same applies to UK S1 holders.

The only area that I can see where pensioners might get a bit more than their fair share is where there are flat rate doctors' or consultants' fees. Here perhaps a pensioner might take up a bit more of their time than the average - and especially if linguistically challenged.

Other then that everything get fully charged back, if I don't use the service there is no charge back. If I use it a lot, a lot gets charged back.

[YCCMB]

Andy, it's clear that the cost of the treatment is reimbursed. I think, however, that being a drain on resources is about more than the price paid for a service.

In my French village, there are a number of British retirees. They seem to spend a LOT of time having medical treatment. It's not about the cost. Our village practice has been a man down for over 2 years, and another doctor is due to retire. My neighbour told me at Christmas that her husband rang to get a prostate check..or an appointment for one..and they can't fit him in until April.

I'm wondering how much shorter his waiting time - or indeed the waiting time just to see a GP - would be if the overstretched GP's didn't have quite so many elderly Brits to see? Even the latter complain about having to wait over 2 hours in the surgery when they do have an appointment.

As Norman points out, the older you get, the more likely you are to need a doctor more often. And you're using a resource that is forcing the indigenous population down the queue.

It's an argument that is often waved in the faces of UK residents by the anti-immigration lobby. I doubt (although I can think of some who will argue differently) that if the UK health service is overstretched in part due to immigrants using it, that the same argument is invalid ( no pun intended) just because the immigrants in question are British and the health service French.

[idun]

I seem to think, and I may have this wrong......... that in spite of the S1's that UK pensioners hand in, that the french are paid a forfait and not per treatment. Now IF any country could say how much is spent per patient, it is France and yet it is not done...... (if I have this right?)

I would dearly love to know how the french have been paid for our medical treatment in the UK.

And yes, old folks are a great drain. Who would have thought that people would have started living so long.......... it is rather weird really and I cannot see it happening to me. I don't want to be in the state that I see some very old folks in...... as my Dad says, 'people just won't die anymore' and in that he includes himself as he not afraid of talk about such a subject.

[andyh4]

I think we all thought it was flat rate for quite some time Idun, but a couple of years ago someone posted on here a definitive answer from the UK Government that explained that although they quote average costs the amounts paid are actual charges.

This chimes with my position where my healthcare is covered by an insurance scheme. Germany has a health system that looks more like the US one than the French or UK systems. The German government does not get directly involved with funding individual healthcare. I simply could not imagine an insurance company paying a flat rate for services that may not be provided.

[NormanH]

andy

"For those with an S1 issued by the UK (or in my case Germany) all costs are directed back to the issuing country"

You are right that the costs of say an operation or a consultation are paid by the issuing country. It isn't a forfait anymore.

But my point is this is only direct cost of the specific procedure.

It doesn't cover the setting up costs, the training of the staff, and most importantly it doesn't pay back the years of côtisations paid into both the  Sécurité Sociale and probably a Mutelle by French people during which time they had not drawn anything out of the system.

The principle is that you pay for many years so it will be there when you need it, and you don't pay all the costs at that moment because you have been covering them over the years.

We arrive in the system at the moment when we are most likely to need to use it without having built up any credit.

[lindal1000]

It's certainly the view of the local health departments that having large numbers of retirees of any nationality places a strain on local resources. Part of the problem is that they tend to live in remote rural areas, where it is difficult to attract enough staff to come and work. As the elderly GPs retire there are no queues of younger doctors willing to replace them. The cost of recruiting, settling and retraining large numbers of doctors from Poland or Romania or other EU countries is certainly not taken into account in the reimbursements given by the UK or other countries.

One of my colleagues told me of the difficulties she had trying to treat an elderly English lady who needed help after a hip replacement. The lady spoke very little French, my colleague only basic schoolgirl English and the assessment was carried out mostly in sign language, took twice as long as it should have and resulted in far more work than normal.

In my local surgery here in France two of the doctors are coming up for retirement with no replacements in sight. One of them is ill, and although when I first arrived here five years ago it was easy enough to get an appointment, now it can take a week. The only thing I will say is that now not all the retirees are British as the area seems to be becoming popular with Belgian and Parisian retirees.

[andyh4]

Betty,

I accept your point about under-resourcing. It is however not my experience in this part of remote France, where in 5 years we have had two new practices set up - against a pretty static population. The general population is probably more aged than the average but with relatively few immigrants - and then mainly Benelux rather than UK.

But any under-resourced organisation is going to struggle. The question is how much do immigrants contribute to that. Given that we don't know what would have been the situation if there were no immigrants we can only guess. Would it have been much better? Or would the properties that have been bought by immigrants and done up have been left to ruin, half the local builder moved out through lack of work, the local shops closed down - and at best replaced by commune supported and subventioned establishments (so increasing local taxes and driving more people out) etc.? WE get into the impossible ground of the net worth of an immigrant with all of the objective and subjective arguments.

Quote NormanH

"For those with an S1 issued by the UK (or in my case Germany) all costs are directed back to the issuing country"

You are right that the costs of say an operation or a consultation are paid by the issuing country. It isn't a forfait anymore.

But my point is this is only direct cost of the specific procedure.

It doesn't cover the setting up costs, the training of the staff, and most importantly it doesn't pay back the years of côtisations paid into both the  Sécurité Sociale and probably a Mutelle by French people during which time they had not drawn anything out of the system.

The principle is that you pay for many years so it will be there when you need it, and you don't pay all the costs at that moment because you have been covering them over the years.

We arrive in the system at the moment when we are most likely to need to use it without having built up any credit.

Unquote

Thank you for that Norman.

I now understand your point. Understand but not accept.

You write as if as we have gone through our working lives there has been a little pot of "health" money that has been gradually been accruing against the time when our health start to fail and we draw down on that pot of money.

That is to completely misunderstand and misrepresent how the system actually works. No little pot of money was put away from our wages when we were 25 years old. Within weeks and certainly months that money was spent. Of course you could devise such a system but the disadvantages would I suggest be unpleasant - those with large health pots demanding priority or the very best of service because they can pay for it, or worse the tap on the shoulder and the whispered information, "no treatment for you today, your pot is empty".

Governments take from the tax payer what they need to sustain the current system. (Perhaps better said they "should take" since I see increasing governments failing to take what is needed in the hope that "the resource problem" will somehow heal itself. It won't - as Betty's example perhaps shows). So yes, you are right that I am using resources that have been trained and provided for by people who have been in the system for years. However I am equally paying through my taxes today to train and provide resources for the generation that will benefit after I have passed beyond.

Indeed I pay the same taxes as any French person in the same position even though my 70% reimbursement by the state has already been paid by another state.

Would I have been paying more 5 years ago when I was working? Yes I would. But those are the tax contributions that (by your logic) are paying for the 70% reimbursement paid to the French system.

If you really want to look for a real problem that could occur, it concerns all of the French emigrants currently working in the UK and other states. If they decide that in their retirement they want to return to France, and in preparation come back for the last few years of their working lives, then despite the majority of their health contributions having been made outside of France, France would become their competent state and be responsible for the majority of their payments after retirement.

[YCCMB]

I'm just asking a question here...but, IIRC correctly, France (where the family income was accrued) is idun's competent state, despite her being British and now living back in the UK.

So, does it depend on when you come back (as a proportion of your working life)?

whether you agree or disagree with the premise about pensioners putting undue strain on the health service, I am always a tad amused at the unshakeable belief held by some pensioners that society should welcome them with open arms because they are making such a valuable contribution to the economy by simply existing and spending a bit of money at the shops. How can pensioners NOT be putting a strain on medical resources whilst, at the same time, keeping all the shops, tradesmen and so on, going? It's like the question about how immigrants to the UK can simultaneously be taking all our jobs and claiming all our unemployment benefits. It doesn't compute.

[andyh4]

Under EU rules, the last state where you make social contributions as part of your salary becomes your competent state. That is why Idun's health care is covered from France and mine is covered from Germany.

I cannot and do not deny that pensioners and other people of ill health use a disproportionate portion of the resource.

The system is not fair. It is based on from those according to their ability, to them according to their needs (in all of the EU countries where I have been involved.)

But in that unfairness I am more than happy to be a loser and keep paying and not using the resource.

[chessie]

What an interesting topic.. though we have strayed very far from the original posting.

Isn't it more a case of 'swings and roundabouts'.

Some pensioners will not need a great deal of medical care;  fit and healthy for a long whilte, and then fall off our perches fairly suddenly (in my case the quicker the better thank you very much).

Some people pay taxes etc all their working lives, retire - and then die within a few years of retiring - unfair, but it happens.   Some live into their 80s and 90s needing very little medical care.

Don't think it's quite right to paint the picture of every retiree out here 'clogging up GPs surgeries' - some of us haven't seen a GP for the last 10 years..........

And the point made about French people (higher numbers than UK expats out here) - living, working and paying taxes in UK - I can imagine a large number of them will want to return to 'home country' later in their lives.  The point made about them having contributed to UK, then later on returning to France and 'becoming a drain' is a very valid point.

Don't forget that the NI contributions in the UK were set up mainly, I believe for pension and health contributions, but the costs of hospitals, staff, training etc - was met out of general taxes not specifically from NI contributions.

The UK is in a rather unique position because it is 'free at the point of use' - and it is free for everyone, from wherever, when they need it, unlike many other european health systems.   I've read comments in the Guardian from posters who believe that the UK system should be changed - to be more like the european ones - but then that is going to penalise a lot of people in the UK, and I rather resent the suggestion that 'our' NHS should change just to suit the european systems.    (But that's another political point, and totally 'off-topic'.....sorry).

To get back to the main point then;  the Vienna Convention I believe would 'kick in', along with 'acquired rights' - I was just wondering how easy people had found it, what was required, what was covered - before the 2004 eu directive. should the French decide that was how it would treat future UK expats coming to live in France.

It would appear that, as retirees covered by the - separate - UK/French Treaty (recipricol rax and health arrangements) - it wasn't too difficult to move here, own property and not have too many (well not too many) difficulties.

So maybe none of us should worry whatever happens.   Might be hugely interesting if there was a Brexit - could cause huge changes in the EU itself one would imagine - but that's off-topic - let's not go there.

[NormanH]

There is a reciprocal tax treaty but I think health is covered by the S1 system which is a European one not separate.

To get a carte de séjour in 1996 was perfectly possbible as evidenced by those of us with them, but it felt long and complicated at the time as it was the first brush one had with French administration, and that as much more pernickerty than now. Full birth certificates translated by a traducteur assermenté, an equally difficult process to prove income and private health care plus a document one no longer needs the fiche individuelle d'état civile, not to mention the livret de famille which in our case we have not got.

On the different ways of paying for health systems between the UK and Europe I agree that the UK has the right to do it in its own way, but what irritates me is the way in which Brits here assume that  that is the 'norm' when in fact it isn't.

[NormanH]

andy:

Under EU rules, the last state where you make social contributions as

part of your salary becomes your competent state. That is why Idun's

health care is covered from France and mine is covered from Germany.

that is not quite as I understand it.

If you receive a pension from a country in which you are living that country is your competent state even if you also receive a pension or pensions  from another.

I thought that if you then live in a third country which doesn't pay you a pension your competent state is the one from which you receive the greater sum.

So in my case I have French and English  pensions but since I live in France that is my competent state.

If however I moved to Spain the UK would then become my competent state.

[andyh4]

You may well be right Norman and what was explained to me was oversimplistic - or, perhaps the answer was tailored to my circumstances rather than generally.

Nevertheless, since French pensions are issued at an earlier age than UK ones - and that gap might widen if todays scare (sorry news) story is to be believed. People returning to France in their later working lives soon enough to accrue a French pension will get French health care.

[AlbertInFrance]

[quote user="NormanH"]The link about getting a carte de séjour for people not in the EU is here:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/N110

The main difference between these and asking for double nationality is that there is no requirement for French Language with the carte de séjour, somthing that might be a hurdle for some older Brits[/quote]

There is no need for a formal language test for naturalisation candidates aged over 60, although when I put in my dossier I had to answer a few oral questiona about French 'culture': 'Name 5 presidents of the Republic'; 'Name a few French authors'.

More to the point, there are (I believe) different rules for EU and non-EU applicants and quite how a Brit applying after a pro-Brexit referendum but before formal exit would be viewed is an interesting question.

I got my French nationality as an EU citizen and the spouse of a French citizen and apparently it's a slower process if you aren't married to a Frog.

Sorry to come in a few days late. I've just wandered back in after a few years.

[NormanH]

You have always had good info...perhaps because of your wanderings? [:D]

[idun]

andy:

Under EU rules, the last state where you make social contributions as

part of your salary becomes your competent state. That is why Idun's

health care is covered from France and mine is covered from Germany.

NH said:

that is not quite as I understand it.

If

you receive a pension from a country in which you are living that

country is your competent state even if you also receive a pension or

pensions  from another.

And now Idun says:

All these statements are correct, due to pension ages being different in different countries[:D]

And I was talking to Newcastle today and asked how the french paid for our health care and they said by usuage, and I am going to look into that, because I do not believe that they can actually do that...... but I may be wrong, I often am[Www]