September 2026
“Smoke On The Water”
We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky
Smoke on the water
They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids out the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky
Smoke on the water
We ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty, cold and bare
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We made a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know, I know we’ll never forget
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky
Smoke on the water
Wikipedia:
““Smoke on the Water” is a song by English rock band Deep Purple, released on their 1972 studio albumMachine Head. The song’s lyrics are based on true events, chronicling the 1971 fire at Montreux Casino in Montreux, Switzerland. It is considered the band’s signature song, and its guitar riff is considered to be one of the most iconic in rock history.
People living in Western countries between 1970 and 1980 probably know about this song and might even have a recording of it. I am being facetious in choosing this title, as I spent my holidays in the French countryside in Burgundy, where the daily news kept mentioning heatwaves, drought, and wildfires. In my mind, drought is associated with water and wildfires with smoke. The image of smoke rising from water may seem idiotic except when a member of this band looks out the window, sees smoke covering Lake Geneva, and writes a song about it. What is depressing is that no matter how the message is delivered, or where or by whom, what global warming means to the future of mankind on Earth seems to be dismissed. So my choice of Smoke on Water may not be an idiotic symbol after all, as even water ends up in fire, showing how dire the situation is.
I hope you had a nice summer, went on vacation for part of it, and found a way to enjoy yourself regardless of the news or the hardships some of you may have faced. In both France and the USA, let’s hope for good news this autumn and maybe in 2027 too.
And for those who grew up partying and dancing to Deep Purple’s music, put on your favorite album and enjoy it once more, thinking of the teenager you were then. You are not alone: I do it regularly!
Here, by the way, is how I introduced my September 2023 issue:
“Deep Purple in Rock is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Deep Purple, released on 5 June 1970. “Into the Fire” is the second song on the album. I still listen to some of this band’s albums, which I have on my hard disk.
“When choosing the title, I was thinking of the massive devastation in Hawaii and the huge wildfires continuing in Canada, California, and parts of southern Europe, including France. Such fires are increasingly dangerous, killing a lot of people. Many of the survivors lose everything, all the belongings of a lifetime. It may be reaching a point where it will be difficult to rebuild what was lost and get people to move back. Some of the photographs from Hawaii show devastation that looks more like bombing than fire damage.
“September is back-to-school time. In France, la rentrée also means back to work. I hope you all had a nice summer. As I write, France is going through one of several summer heat waves. Some of them have broken records. I am lucky that my office stays cooler than the outside temperature even at the worst time of day.
“France used to completely shut down for the entire month of August. This was called “Sleeping Beauty syndrome.” Although long-term residents may notice that each year it is increasingly business as usual in August, a nonchalant ambiance still reigns in Paris during the month.”
Reading this three years later, seeing it describe almost exactly what has happened this summer regarding wildfires, it is clear that this is now a yearly situation. It cannot be accepted as the new normal. As for my summer vacation, this year I managed the horrid heatwaves in July and August inside a medieval house with such thick walls that the heat stays mostly outside.
I did not want to use the same title as I believe there are more important issues to address. I believe that the so-called rentrée is going to be challenging in both the USA and France, for different reasons.
GLOBAL WARMING WAS AN ISSUE IN THE 1974 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
I was almost 15 and living at home with my parents when I followed the 1974 presidential campaign. Much of the news coverage and discussion was about politics, candidates, and so on, as with all presidential campaigns. For the first time, there was an écologiste candidate, René Dumont, who won 1.32% of the vote.
WIKIPEDIA
[René Dumont] was one of the first to denounce damages from the Green Revolution (“Révolution Verte”) and to fight agricultural productivism. He was an expert with the United Nations and FAO, and wrote about 30 books. He traveled widely and had a good understanding of farming issues in underdeveloped countries. ….
Ahead of his time, the most famous French agronomist, well known for his red sweater, surprised French people by showing on TV an apple and a glass of water, telling them how precious these natural resources were, and predicting the future price of oil. Dumont was one of the first to explain the consequences of what was to be called globalization, demographic explosion, productivism, pollution, shantytowns, malnutrition, rift between northern and southern countries. He was also one of the first to use the term “développement durable” (sustainable development).
In practically all Western countries, academics, researchers, and activists in the 1970s warned people and political leaders of the catastrophic consequences of lifestyles at the time. They were not listened to; they were ridiculed, even though many were esteemed experts in their field. I still remember what was said in my family, in the media, and in public places: nearly unanimous condemnation of Dumont’s positions, and how insulting it was that he was a candidate in the French presidential election. Only once, my middle school history teacher mentioned water pollution from household cleaning products and their long-term effects.
We have been warned for 50 years or so of what is going to happen. There is no point in listing what has happened this summer in North America and southern Europe, just to talk about what the media talks about, ignoring events just as fatal as the landslides in China, for example. Wildfires have dominated the news for several weeks, and rightfully so; the one in Fontainebleau was within the Parisian metropolitan area, and the one in the southwest was very close to Bordeaux and its wineries. The heatwaves are now so brutal that they kill a measurable part of the population.
It is a fact that Western countries suffer from complete blindness regarding this matter. It is not too late to address the situation, but it will take many years to fix what can be fixed.
This is Dumont’s 1974 stump speech; sorry, I could not find an English translation.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMRFKNu0f30
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Dumont
CLARIFICATION REGARDING WORKING IN FRANCE
Immigration lawyer Maître Daniel Tostado managed to submit a request regarding remote work in France for overseas clients to the Interior Ministry via Député M. François Gernigon. Here is the ministry’s response:
THE ANSWER
Il n’existe aucun texte relatif au droit du séjour des ressortissants étrangers en télétravail sur le territoire français au profit de l’économie d’un autre pays étranger, dont l’administration n’a aucun moyen d’en avoir connaissance. Sur le principe, un titre de séjour à finalité professionnelle (salariée ou non salariée) implique l’exercice d’une activité sur le territoire français intégrée à l’économie française, c’est-à-dire au “marché” français. A contrario, un ressortissant étranger résidant en France mais ne remplissant pas ces critères, et qui reste rémunéré et s’acquitte de la fiscalité liée dans son pays d’origine, doit solliciter une carte de séjour temporaire mention “visiteur”. Si un ressortissant de pays tiers n’est pas salarié en France ou n’exerce pas d’activité professionnelle en France au bénéfice d’une entreprise située sur le territoire, l’activité qu’il exerce dans le cadre du télétravail au profit d’un employeur de droit étranger doit conduire à le considérer comme non-actif au regard du droit français. Il est interdit au détenteur de cette carte de séjour temporaire d’exercer en France une activité professionnelle soumise à autorisation.
TRANSLATION
There is no legislation governing the right of residence for foreign nationals who are working remotely in France for the benefit of another country’s economy, a fact that the French authorities have no way of knowing. In principle, a residence permit for professional purposes (whether as an employee or self-employed) requires the individual to engage in an activity on French territory that is integrated into the French economy – that is, the French market. Conversely, a foreign national residing in France who does not meet this requirement, but who continues to receive compensation and pays the associated taxes in their country of origin, must apply for the temporary residence permit called visiteur. If a third-country national is not employed in France or does not carry out professional activities in France on behalf of a company located in France, the work they perform remotely for an employer governed by foreign law must result in their being considered non-working under French law. Holders of the temporary visiteur residence permit are prohibited from engaging in any professional activity in France that requires authorization.
I would like to describe, at a practical level, how this situation affects various procedures concerning the French administration.
ANEF – PREFECTURE
The ANEF website “Étrangers en France” https://administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr/usagers/# handles renewals of the visiteur immigration status. The site proposes several types of documents to prove that one has the financial means to renew this status, i.e., at least the French annual minimum wage, or SMIC, currently about 18,000 euros. The fact that it is possible to submit foreign payslips as proof demonstrates that working for a foreign employer is compatible with renewing thevisiteur status.
FRENCH TAX OFFICE
The vast majority of people now fill out their income declarations online and so do not see the different forms involved, which are as follows:
CERFA #2042 is a generic form whose first two pages need to be filled out by everybody, as they cover personal information. The third page is mostly, in this case, about salary, as well as retirement and pension income. Slots 1AF and 1AK are for declaring foreign salary. Slots 1AL and 1AM cover foreign retirement and pension.
CERFA #2042 Cpro is the form for declaring foreign non-employee income, using slots 5DF and 5XJ.
CERFA #2042C deals mostly with capital gains, but there is a box that it is crucial to check, 8RP or 8RQ, stating: “Vous ne relevez pas d’un régime obligatoire français d’assurance maladie” (You are not covered by the French national public health coverage). See explanation below.
CERFA #2047 deals exclusively with all types of foreign income, detailing it so that the tax treaty with the identified country or countries can be applied. The amounts declared in the other abovementioned forms are mentioned again here, and section 6 is about wrapping up the declaration in order to avoid double taxation with the USA and other countries with a similar tax treaty with France.
This clearly illustrates that the French tax office issues fiscal forms that take into account the fact that one can be a French fiscal resident and earn foreign income taxed in the foreign country.
As stated above, it is critical to check either Box 8RP or 8RQ, found on the CERFA #2042C.Checking it states that the foreigner is not covered by the public system and therefore has a private policy in order to comply with the prefecture requirement to have health insurance. Overlooking this box has serious consequences, the most immediate and obvious being that URSSAF gets a copy of the declaration and calculates the amount owed as the cotisation subsidiaire maladie, also known as CSM; not checking the box amounts to stating under oath that you are covered by CPAM through the PUMa program. It is then possible that you owe this CSM calculated on your foreign-earned income, even if you are covered by the public coverage. This is why I cannot overstate the importance of checking this box when dealing with this issue.
Remember, URSSAF collects all social charges linked to employee and self-employment work. It sees one of its main missions as protecting workers, especially employees, as it collects social charges for the benefit of the general population. This is another reason to make sure URSSAF never sees your French income declaration.
I hope this issue is now clear, including the coherence between what the government stated and the procedures for immigration status renewal and tax declaration. Too often, it is difficult to see the connection between a general policy as explained at the government level and what people actually need to do.
REVOLUT OBTAINS A FRENCH BANKING LICENSE
Revolut is a British-based financial tech company later licensed as a bank. After Brexit, the bank needed to be in the EU to continue to serve its European clientele. Specifically, its European branch needed to be located in a country belonging to the Single European Payments Area (SEPA). Member countries share bank operating information, handling transactions as if they were all in a domestic market. Revolut’s first European office was in Lithuania, a SEPA member country. It offered full banking services in Lithuania but limited its operations to checking and savings accounts in the other SEPA countries.
Last year it moved its European headquarters to Paris, and as of August 2026 it also has a French banking license and can now offer its entire range of banking services, such as loans, mortgages, and portfolio management, in France. Another change is that customer IBANs will start with FR.
Under normal circumstances with regular transactions, this shift is of little consequence. But when the French administration wires money to a private individual, the legal assumption is that the person lives in France and has a French bank account. Any IBAN without the FR was blocked because government transfers could not be sent to someone living outside France. Thus, the change will benefit private individuals, including these not-so-small consequences.
THE PASSEPORT TALENT Nº9 ARTISTE IMPLIES A CAREER REBIRTH
In less than 6 months, I have dealt with several people holding the artiste immigration status who have little or no registration in France regarding taxes, social charges, public health coverage, and so on. When I am contacted before the visa request is ready, I spend a long time discussing with the client how their career will evolve and perhaps drastically change when they move to France. Sometimes, the career is the reason for the move. I can think of musicians blending several genres whom the American market found impossible to define. In Western Europe, some classical musicians with established careers have gone into rock and heavy metal and been just as successful. Connoisseurs might recognize the Concerto for Group and Orchestra in this connection:
WIKIPEDIA
It is a live album by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Arnold. Recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall in September 1969, it consists of a concerto composed by Jon Lord, with lyrics by Ian Gillan. … Long planned by Jon Lord, the project was not very successful in the United States but helped establish Purple’s reputation and image in the United Kingdom.
The 1969 performance is considered “groundbreaking” because it was the first time that a major rock band recorded a live album with a full orchestra, cementing the “then odd but today very common” relationship between heavy rock and classical music.
It was one of the first albums I purchased by this band.
Most of the time, such artists have personal reasons to establish their residence in France, such as a desire to leave the USA. The natural reflex is to continue their artistic projects as they have always done, being fiscally anchored in the USA, clearing all their income in the USA, and keeping the same agent and accountant. Most have already spent a lot of time in France, being well known there. Hence, registering a visa on the ANEF website and going through the OFII procedure are seen as the minimum requirements to stay and enjoy French life without limitation.
As the expiration of the visa nears – often a few days short of two months before the expiration date – they look into renewing the artiste immigration status and can show plenty of proof of an active career. But then they realize the prefecture will want French accounting and fiscal documents, first registrations and then declarations showing they paid French social charges and income tax. In some cases, an artist can ask for a huge amount of leniency when requesting renewal, promising to clean up everything with the French administration, showing what has been done, and waiting for their answers. In other cases, nothing can be done on short notice to fix the problem. There is always a choice: one can choose from many other types of immigration status or even ask for another VLS-TS visa during a stay in the USA. This should be a no-brainer and will allow a fresh start.
Except for the visiteur status mentioned above and the complete expat one defined within the passeport talent, salariés en mission, sub-subcategory foreign labor contract, all others will sooner or later require basic registration with the rest of the French administration, not just the immigration part. Holding a VLS-TS is a paradigm shift for real. In my view, people should work on that aspect of their plans to move to France as part of an overall strategy. For some it takes several months, for others it is a matter of years. But 90 minutes is all the time it takes to fill out the forms on the France visa site https://france-visas.gouv.fr and the TLS site https://visas-fr.tlscontact.com/en-us/country/us/vac/usWAS2fr. You will need information on:
1. Budget
Start with how much the complete move will cost, considering where you will live, as well as professional assistance and settling costs, followed by a yearly budget once things fall into place.
2. Activities, occupation, organization of daily life
One very obvious consequence of moving to France is that if you need to work from 8AM to 5PM in your employer’s location, you will be working a large portion of the night. Guidebooks love describing the impact of time differences.
3. Length of time living in France
Staying four years on an expat status, with children going to the American School of Paris paid by the employer, is a totally different project than choosing to quit the USA for good to live the next 30 years or more in France. The various immigration procedures are part of that, but there is much more to it.
Of course, no matter how perfectly planned your move to France has been, something will derail sooner or later, but these unforeseen problems will be a lot smaller and cheaper to fix.
MY FEES HAVE INCREASED AS OF SEPTEMBER 1
Here are the new rates:
1st meeting/1st work: 420€ euros for 2 hours
Extra hour(s): 180 euros per hour
Handling mail at my office: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-office meetings: 90 euros, assuming less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend, on national French holidays, and during vacations: 30%
Clients paying by wire to an American account must add $20 to the fee to cover the bank charge for processing a wire transfer.
Bounced checks incur a charge of $20 or 20 euros.
THE SHIP STUDIO IS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL IN JULY 2026
The SHIP studio is available as of September 1, assuming the current tenant does not extend the lease. When people contact me about renting it, I send them to the website. I hope it shows how cozy the accommodations are. The monthly rent of 1,400 euros is all-inclusive. While I continue to favor rentals lasting between two and six months, under certain conditions I have accepted one-month rentals.
https://www.jeantaquet.com/home-in-paris
Best regards,
QUESTION
THE CONSEQUENCES OF ASKING FOR THE WRONG VISA
I urgently need help as my student visa application was just rejected for a second time. I originally was granted the self-employed (profession libérale) visa, but before I moved to France, I got into a master’s program at a Parisian university. At that time, I was advised by my school that I could start my program on that visa and then switch to the student visa when the self-employed visa expired. However, when I applied to switch to the student visa, my application was rejected. I had 30 days to depart from France, and I left within the deadline. I submitted an amicable appeal, requesting the student visa again. I just received the denial for this gentle appeal. The grounds are that they believe I was coming to France to study even though I was asking for the self-employed visa. They call this perjury that I would have committed when asking for this business visa. I never intended to commit perjury. On the contrary, I was totally honest and transparent. I asked the authorities if this was possible before applying. I have completed a year of school at this French public university. I now have 30 days to appeal this decision again; my second year of my master’s program is starting soon. Can my good faith overrule this decision?
ANSWER
There are numerous layers of issues in your situation. I would like to identify them before answering in full.
1. The issuance of a VLS-TS immigration visa is closely linked to a situation or an activity.
2. Changing immigration status while living in France is possible but heavily regulated.
3. Any activities you have in France outside your main purpose of being in the country are irrelevant to the prefecture.
4. The legal qualification of your actions cannot be changed; on rare occasions, its consequence can be partially or completely alleviated.
Now, let us review your situation chronologically to identify each step that went wrong.
The visa request
You asked for a self-employed immigration status when you filled out the France Visa questionnaire. The form clearly specifies that its submission means you swear it has been filled out honestly and all the information given is sincere and truthful; if this is not the case, the applicant can be penalized for perjury. At the TLS meeting, you submitted a file exclusively about a business you wanted to open in France, stating to the TLS employee that this was what you wanted as an immigration status. You obtained the VLS-TS visa, which indicates that your file was strong and well documented. The visa required you to register it, which you did. You then had a legal obligation to register your French business, which you did not do. This omission violated your legal obligations and put you in a position of committing perjury, as your inaction indicated that you were not interested in running a French business. What was supposed to be a secondary activity became your primary activity as a full-time student in a master’s program in France.
The prefecture procedure
At the end of your visa, the prefecture wants to review your activities as a self-employed person during the year. Once this is done and you comply with the requirements of your immigration status, the prefecture can review your request for the following year. You submitted a change of status request. So the prefecture’s first step is to decide if you have the right to change after just one year. The answer is no, as it is too soon to do so; this is acceptable only after the second year. In other words, even if you had had a perfect track record as a self-employed person, this request would have been denied. What you did was use your self-employment, i.e., profession libérale visa, to be a full-time student as if you held student immigration status. This compounds the perjury accusation.
It happens quite often in immigration situations that an applicant obtains information from the prefecture or another reliable source that is true but is completely misleading because of the way the question was asked and therefore the way the answer was understood.
Here is the situation you are in. You understood the prefecture to be saying:
1 – Yes, you can start your program, i.e., your studies, on the self-employed visa. This is totally legal, as explained above (though it was meant to be a secondary activity).
2 – Yes, it might be possible to switch to student immigration status while holding self-employed status.
Both of those statements are close enough to what you understood, but the issue lies in the details. Because of that, your requests got an immediate and definitive refusal.
For your information, I had a client who held the profession libérale self-employed status and was a student for four years, obtaining a two-year master’s degree at the end. The prefecture never knew he was also a student.
You have now received, or will soon, the document called Obligation de Quitter le Territoire Français, which is a polite way to say expulsion order. There is no way to successfully appeal this decision.
Judging strictly by the information you gave me and my understanding, your best solution to obtain the visa you need to resume your master’s is to ask for a VLS-TS student visa as soon as possible with a file strong enough to guarantee such a visa will be issued.
QUESTION
CANNOT GO TO PREFECTURE BECAUSE OF A MEDICAL CONDITION
In April, I booked an RDV at the Paris Prefecture to pick up my new carte de séjour. I hurt my knee and rescheduled that appointment a month later. Lately, my knee problem has worsened significantly. I believe that I need to cancel once again. Indeed, there is no way that I can stand for the two-plus hours that are always required. So, my doctor has provided me with a medical certificate to ensure that I can cancel and book another one. But I am not sure about cancelling and rescheduling a second time. Will the system allow me to do that? Should a message be written to the prefecture to explain the situation? Should it be handled some other way?
ANSWER
I understand your concerns, but I have seen people going to the prefecture in a wheelchair or arriving in an ambulance. The prefecture has procedures to address the needs of people with medical conditions.
1. The most common procedure is the one that would apply to you. It starts at the checkpoint. You bypass the line outside the building and go straight to the checkpoint with your normal documents and the medical certificate. Using a cane helps as proof of your condition, and you probably need one considering the condition you describe.
2. You are let in immediately and go through security. Instead of getting in line on your left, you go to the desk straight in front of you, which handles special situations. You might have to wait some time, as there are often others with similar cases.
3. The civil servant gives you the number you will be called by, and accompanies you to room 1 (salle 1), where normally you can sit right away.
4. You wait to be called, and you then get the card.
Obviously, this cuts the time you are at the prefecture. The most important thing is that you are sitting for the majority of the time you are there.
Make sure your doctor explains in the certificate that your condition is serious and you cannot remain standing for long.
DISCLAIMER
Please forward this message to all those who would be interested in its contents. The information contained in this newsletter is intended only as general information. I strongly urge readers to seek professional guidance concerning the legal and tax matters mentioned. This newsletter is intended as a general guide and is not to be taken as professional advice.