unemployment, and the French system, help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[steveant]

Hi

My friend has spent 3 years out in the Charante just above Angouleme with his kids work has been speradic to say the least, now the  money has slowly gone and theres no work at all.
Hes back in the UK trying to get something, shes in France doing the same, i see the cracks apearing and this wont go on for much longer before something has to give, I love my friends very much and need to know how to help them???????

How do they Get Unemployment money, the French wont let them in the system, they have no money to start a small business to get in that way if you can???

They are very hard workers, but if there no work what can you do.

Any advice greatfully recieved.

Thanks

[Clair]

[quote user="steveant"]How do they Get Unemployment money, the French wont let them in the system[/quote]

They can sign on in France with the ANPE and temping agencies (Manpower, Adecco, Adia, Vediorbis...), but they will not get unemployment benefit unless they have paid into the system.

[steveant]

How can they get into the French system, they wanted to pay in when they had work, but they wouldnt let them.

How come we are suppose to be running under the same european system, but after a short time anyone can get in to the English unemployment system, but not the French im lost????

Is there a way round this ????

 

Thanks

Steve

[Just Katie]

What do you mean, the French wouldnt allow them into the system?  They refused to take tax payments and cotisations from them?

[steveant]

My friend had a Job in England and wanted to pay tax and ni in France, because he lived there, so he could be in the French system, he was told he couldnt do this

 

Regards

Steve

[parsnips]

[quote user="steveant"]

.

How come we are suppose to be running under the same european system, but after a short time anyone can get in to the English unemployment system, but not the French im lost????

Is there a way round this ????

 

Thanks

Steve

[/quote]

       I think you have found the only practical solution to their problem---move back to the UK, where they will at least find it easier to get benefits. I believe that after being on job-seekers allowance  for a certain time you can continue to recieve it in France for 3 months, while looking for work. Maybe they could have 3 months in France each year seeking employment, under this arrangement.

[steveant]

The only problem is that they have children at school so this is not a way they can run there lives.

Crazy really when we do everything in our power to make childrens live settled and a normal, but the English  and French goverment carnt sort out a system that would help families through these problems like this, my friend and his wife have a combined 50 or 55yrs of tax and NI contributions in the English System.

They are not slackers looking for a hand up all the time, like loads in our country, just a family caught in a trap and they have to suffer like this,

CRAZY

 

 

[Clair]

Your friends appear to have moved to a foreign country with their school-age children without having researched all aspects of the move properly. Ranting about the differences between the way England and France run

their benefit systems is pointless. Save your energy in trying to help

them.

The first port of call should be the assistance sociale at the mairie. The person responsible will help them assess what help is available.

Have they been in contact with their CAF (details here)?

[Val_2]

You cannot just go to the ANPE either without first signing on with ASSEDIC who will want all his details and also his payments made in France etc .Without these I am afraid there will be little chance of any financial assistance as you must pay in first to receive anything later.Has he been registered with the local CPAM because without any SS number it will also be extremely difficult now to get anything?

[Sprogster]

steveant, I believe the crux of the matter is whether or not your friends have any realistic chance of finding meaningful employment in France. If they have already been in France three years and have struggled to find work during a period when the economy was relatively bouyant, then realistically their chances in the current enviroment must be even worse.

The most important thing must be to keep the family together and if that means moving back to the UK, then that must be better then risk the stesses and strains of a hand to mouth existence in France, with the parents split between two countries struggling to find work.

Unfortunately, the return rate of Brits who move to France and need to find employment in that country is very high, as France has always had a much higher unemployment rate than the UK and the social security charges make self employment uneconomic in many instances.

That said if they do return to the UK, it does not mean they have failed, quite the contrary in that the family would have had a marvellous life experience of living in a foreign country.

[mandycats]

If they have children (of any age under 16) they are entitled to RMI (revenue minimum de insertion).  This is available from the assistant social (via the marie -as someone has already pointed out). This is irrespective of if you have paid into the french system or not and is nothing to do with unemployment benefits.   Signing an application will also entitle them to assisted health cover, various allowances for the childrens school dinners etc.  Then there is also access to assistance with setting up a small business or finding a job (or both!).

They will need to take to the meeting all their documents including last tax returns from uk, dates when they last earned money (uk and france) and all their certificates (birth etc).  Also they should take along a copy of each of their last bills including water/taxes/electric/school diners etc. and any proof of searching for work (regection letters etc).

This will be followed up by a home visit to assertain the living conditions and if seen appropriate they will be given the allowance pretty quickly (unusually for the french).  The french love families and will do what they can to help when  children are involved.

I hope this information is of some help to your friends and i wish them well for the future.

We all make bad choices at times and it may be with hindsight things could have been done differently - but we are all wiser after the event!

 

 

 

 

[woolybanana]

Somewhere at the back of my much enfeebled mind I have a feeling that the RMI was stopped quite recently for foreigners in these circumstances. Anyone help?

[Boiling a frog]

Wooly you are quite right RMI is no longer available in France for EU citizens unless they have been in France on a legal basis (health care and sufficient funds) for 5 years.

Likewise Unemployment benefit is not available unless you have worked for a minimum period in France and IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME IN THE UK.

  

[Cjlaws]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]

 RMI is no longer available in France for EU citizens unless they have been in France on a legal basis (health care and sufficient funds) for 5 years.

  [/quote]

That's very interesting. It's not what it says HERE or HERE

When did the rules change and how?

[Clair]

Both websites quoted above refer to a "right to reside" (droit au séjour), which infers that the stay complies with current legislation, i.e. the resident must "dispose of sufficient resources not to become a burden on the social

assistance system of the host Member State and a comprehensive sickness

insurance.", as explained here.

[quote]Pour disposer d'un droit au séjour en qualité de "non-actifs", les intéressés doivent remplir certaines conditions.

Les retraités et autres inactifs doivent disposer,

pour eux et les membres de leur famille, de ressources suffisantes pour

ne pas devenir une charge pour le système d'assistance sociale français

et d'une assurance maladie-maternité.

To have a right to stay as "non-active" EU members must meet certain conditions.

Retirees and other inactive must have for themselves and their family

members, sufficient resources to avoid becoming a burden on the French

social assistance and health insurance and maternity.[/quote]

[mandycats]

It cant be right.  How else do the polish get all those benefits then?  They certainly havent worked in the uk for 5 years or more.  I thought it was along the lines of the 3 months with no income then you were entitled.  Recently a neighbour gained RMI they have only been out of work for 4 months after they moved to france.  I guess alot of people come to france thinking there is abundant work, cheap houses and low living costs... sadly this just insn't the case anymore.  (thinking about it they had RMI from feb 08 so perhaps the legislation changed after that).

 

 

 

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="mandycats"]

It cant be right.  How else do the polish get all those benefits then?  They certainly havent worked in the uk for 5 years or more. 

[/quote]

What benefits is that then?  Free housing,  National health cover, job seekers allowance?  Your problem is that you believe the Daily Wail and clearly didn't bother to think or find out the facts for yourself before you posted. 

99% of Poles go the UK to work.  In doing so they pay taxes and NHI and don't get any state benefits, even if they did go the UK to take all our "social money" as is the claim from the great unwashed and often unemployed in the UK, they are not entitled to anything for SIX months as has been stated clearly above your post.  Most Polish workers, note the name WORKERS,  don't stay that long at a time, preferring to go back to their families in Poland after earning a decent living in the UK doing jobs that many of the great idle lumps who moan about them would not even contemplate.

Getting back to the original point the French system is different to that of the UK and the real situation and options facing the "friend" of the OP are there for the reading, if the OP or his friend ever gets back to this thread.

[AnOther]

[quote user="mandycats"]I guess a lot of people come to France thinking there is abundant work, cheap houses and low living costs... sadly this just isn't the case anymore[/quote]Cheaper houses possibly but abundant work and low living costs, when was that then ?

[Will]

[quote user="ErnieY"]...abundant work and low living costs, when was that then ?

[/quote]

That must have been that other place, also called France, that was on all those TV programmes about five years ago. [;-)]

[Ron Avery]

"That must have been that other place, also called France, that was on all those TV programmes about five years ago"

Channel 5 is so hard up its showing A Place in the Sun dated 2002 now, you know the ones where the pig sty can be converted into a gite for 200 FF and let for £1000 a week[:'(]  I wonder if the producers of that programme can be sued for misrepresentation?

[letrangere]

Yes, but that place never really existed, Ron, as I'm sure, judging by your very sensible postings, you know. 

I remember this Forum 5+ years back.  I remember being shouted down for saying this "craze" for moving to France, which it undeniably was, was only going to end in tears for one helluva lot of people.  And finding it incredible to read about all these individuals saying how they were planning on moving to France and intended to do this, that or the other. And I remember posting at the time, "look, I have lived and studied for five years in Paris, and, believe me, it isn't that easy to find jobs even THERE as a foreigner with fluent language and skills that companies require.  How on earth are you going to make it in the middle of nowhere with non-transferrable skills and barely able to ask in the local language for a loaf of bread?".  And people replied  "oh, no things are changing, dah, dee, dah, I can be a mechanic/check out girl/gardener and make enough for me and the family to live a comfortable life less stressfully."  And we'd say, "hul-lo, don't you realise that unemployment is nudging 10% and if you are a foreigner with limited language skills, you're going to be way at the back of the line for jobs."  But still people came.  And I really hate to say this, honestly, but couldn't they have seen this coming???

[parsnips]

Hi,

   I could not agree more with l'etrangere. We have been here 16 yrs,( retired on an adequate pension) , and when these"Move to France " programmes started, and proliferated ,we wondered what France they were filmed in! The people fooled by them started as a trickle and then about 4 or 5 yrs ago became a flood--not retired people with incomes, but couples with young children  who had given up jobs and homes in the UK to"follow their dream"; well now the dream has become a nightmare, and we are seeing a sort of, last in - first out ,exodus, of these families returning to live with relations and leaving behind an unsaleable , half -"renovated" ruin. And still they keep repeating this rubbish--no doubt they will soon be urging viewers to take advantage of the falling french property prices!

[mandycats]

Actually Ron Avery there is no need to be rude and take a tone with me.  I have worked in that area for some time and i still have many friends who work within the benifits (actually more the fraud side) agency.  I know that certain groups of people do not work for 5 years in the country of settlement before getting housing, unemployement and all the other benefits a european citizens are allowed to claim. 

As for the rest of it, watch the tv!  They are still replaying old programmes with the cheap cost of living, desperate need for builders/electricians etc.   If i had a euro for every builder i bumped into i'd be a rich person.  So many of them have gone back and even more arrive everyday!  A victim of the recession in the uk, thinking that they will find work and loaded retired brits in need of work doing! 

I think your right parsnips about the new influx that will arrive soon!  still it all adds to the fun.

 

 

 

 

[Ron Avery]

" I have worked in that area for some time and i still have many friends who work within the benifits (sic) (actually more the fraud side) agency"

Really, well might we have expected a much more informed post from you then in the first place?

[Jay]

Parsnips wrote: "We have been here 16 yrs,( retired on

an adequate pension)"

Sounds like you have never taken a risk in your entire life! Isn't it better to

have tried and failed than never tried at all? Not everyone has an adequate

income from the UK

to live on. We have friends who moved here because of the dream, work all hours

God sends, make a reasonable living and love it. Of course you will get the

spongers in all countries, not least the UK. I do agree with you about the dreadful,

out of date TV programs, but please don't tar everyone with the same brush.

Mandycats wrote: "Actually Ron Avery there is no need to be rude and take

a tone with me"

What tone is that then? You condemn someone for speaking the truth? Also Ron's

post gave me the distinct impression he condemns the TV programs which are out

of date just as much as anyone else.

We have several Polish friends in the UK, two of whom work for our

daughter, and I can assure you they are the hardest working people I have ever

met. They work to maintain their families in Poland

and have never claimed benefits of any kind in the UK. Imagine working away from home

for several weeks at a time for years without your family around you, just to make a decent living.

They have my admiration!