Well, I’m a gonna raise a fuss, I’m gonna raise a holler
About workin’ all summer just to try an’ earn a dollar
Everytime I call my baby, to try to get a date
My boss says, no dice, son, you gotta work late
Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
‘Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
Well, my mom an papa told me, son, you gotta make some money
If you want to use the car to go ridin’ next sunday
Well I didn’t go to work, told the boss I was sick
Now you can’t use the car ’cause you didn’t work a lick
Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
‘Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
Ow
I’m gonna take two weeks, gonna have a vacation
I’m gonna take my problem to the United Nation
Well I called my congressman and he said quote
“I’d like to help you son, but you’re too young to vote”
Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
‘Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
Well, I’m a gonna raise a fuss, I’m gonna raise a holler
About workin’ all summer just to try an’ earn a dollar
Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
‘Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
Yeah, sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
‘Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
No, there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues

The song “Summertime Blues” was recorded by the American rock and rockabilly artist Eddie Cochran and written by Cochran and his manager, Jerry Capehart. It was released in August 1958, originally as a single B-side..

Out of all the weeks I was supposed to be on vacation, I was away from Paris only during the last one. I saw and heard about calamities occurring in the USA, France and pretty much all over Europe this summer. My awareness of these tribulations made me choose this song. While my office was closed, I also had to deal with some hardships of my own.

Instead of information about how many people spent time in seashore resorts and how warm the sea was, this year we heard about wildfires all over France, and in many parts of Europe, as well as in areas generally not affected in the USA and Canada. We also heard about deaths from flooding and storms, as well as serious droughts. And this is just the news about the climate! The rest of the news, regardless of the topics, has been pretty gloomy, and one needs to scrutinize the media to find good news that inspires cautious optimism.

THE TAIWAN CRISIS
In my November 2021 issue, titled “Cloudy,” I described my longtime interest in the modern history of Taiwan. As often happens with old civilizations, to understand what is happening today one needs to go back several centuries, and I have researched Taiwanese history from the 17th century up to the present. With some Far East nations, exploring history for several thousand years is necessary to decipher current situations, and I almost never see such an in-depth perspective in either the French or American media reporting about the current situation in Taiwan. Suddenly everyone has discovered the conflict that exists in the China Sea, yet the origins of the impasse began in 1949 when General Chiang Kai-Shek and his armies and followers found refuge on the island known as Formosa. Tensions were high in August 2022, with the media talking about war being imminent. But I doubt armed conflict will break out any time soon. The hope that journalists covering this situation will go back to 1996, the year of the first-ever direct and de facto democratic presidential election in Taiwan, is perhaps not very realistic in today’s environment, but should diligent journalists cover those events, people today would be better informed and take sensationalist journalism with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I believe that Nancy Pelosi is well acquainted with the history of Taiwan in the past 26 years, and probably even longer, as she was militant about the Tiananmen Square protests held in Beijing, which occurred in 1989.

THE FINALIZATION OF THE “A SURVIVAL HOME IN PARIS” PROJECT 
The closing on the property on August 11th almost did not occur, as few of the parties concerned were in town except our family. Based on the situation as of August 31st, it would be quite optimistic to envision the first guest moving in on November 1st. The renovation should be completed in September but the delivery of the furniture is going to take about two months and, as my regular readers know, whatever is done in August does not count, as the factories are closed. I will use my Facebook account and the October issue to keep people informed about the exact date when everything will be ready.

I remind my readers of the kind of project I have in mind. The studio should ideally serve as temporary but comfortable lodging for someone who has either secured a long-stay visa or is submitting a request for one. It could also be for someone who wants to “test drive” living in France while on a 90-day Schengen regulation before taking the plunge – or not – to buy or rent somewhere on a more long-term basis. After 25 years of offering “A Survival Kit for Paris,” I will soon be able to propose “A Survival Home in Paris” to those who need it, as an extension of my services.

These are the guidelines to accommodate this project:

Rentals will be for a minimum of two months, maximum of six months. This is meant to be the first step toward settling in Paris, or for people who have a serious interest regarding France.

The monthly rent is 1,200€, all included (internet access, utilities and so on), with payment for the duration of the rental period due when the reservation is made.

The security deposit of the same amount, 1,200€, is added to the rent payment.

This is a no-smoking, no-pet place.

My website should soon have a section dedicated to the apartment so that reservations and payment can be done online.

Given the size of the studio – 329 square feet (30 square meters) – and the way it is set up, it is ideal for a single person. It might be considered a tad too small for a couple by American standards: there is just one room, which includes the kitchen, and only the bathroom is separate.

The two walk-throughs cost 150€ each and the initial one includes as such a one-hour session with my assistant, Sarah, for advice and guidance to help with the stay aside from showing the studio, its appliances, and other things.

While this rental business is totally separate from my consulting business, I expect many of the guests will have been my clients earlier, so the two lines of service can coexist.

EU INFORMATION FOR VISITORS: ETIAS AND STAYING AFTER PERMISSION EXPIRES
I discovered two breakthroughs have come from the EU administration.

ETIAS
What I believe to be the more important of the two concerns the planned European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS).

Currently citizens of 63 countries that are not in the European Union (EU) can enter the EU’s Schengen area without a visa. The USA is one of these countries.

ETIAS will be a completely electronic system that allows and keeps track of visitors from these countries. It resembles the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which serves a similar purpose in the USA.

The legal process to create ETIAS started in 2016. The system is expected to be fully operational in May 2023, but not mandatory until the following November. Currently there is still some uncertainty regarding the timing of its implementation. 

ETIAS will make a detailed security check of each applicant to determine whether they are allowed to enter a Schengen country. This procedure applies to those who do not need a visa for travel of up to 90 days in the EU. ETIAS will gather, keep track of and update information to make sure they are not a security threat. It will also monitor precisely who is overstaying the 90-day limit inside the Schengen area.

People who are applying for or renewing an immigration status do not need to request ETIAS.

www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias

Staying after a visa or other permission has expired
I am often asked about this second issue. My answer has always been that at the end of the immigration right documented by a visa, carte de séjour or other document, the illegal stay starts. At the same time, especially in France, there is a certain tolerance for stays beyond that date. The European Commission has issued a statement that recognized this right to overstay the expiration date of an immigration status at the EU level, which I have been calling “tolerance”.

Here is the statement given by Dimitris Avramopoulos, then EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship. on behalf of the Commission on March 13th, 2015, to an EU Parliament question:

“The Commission confirms its reply of 16 December 2014 on the same issue (E-007775/2014). Consecutive stays beyond 90 days in a Member State (such as a continuous stay without interruption right after the expiry of a long‐term residence permit) are not regulated by the Schengen acquis.

“According to Article 5(1a) of the Schengen Borders Code, the periods of stay authorized under a residence permit or a long-stay visa shall not be taken into account in the calculation of the duration of short-stay on the territory of the Schengen Member States (when assessing the compliance with the 90 days in any 180-day rule provided by the EU/Schengen acquis). This provision thus allows visa-free third-country nationals (such as US citizens) legally to remain in the Schengen area and visit the other Schengen Member States than the one that issued the residence permit; they can start ‘consuming’ their 90 days visa-free ‘tourist’-stay without leaving and re-entering the Schengen area.

“However, this provision does not allow for a continuous, uninterrupted stay in the Member State that issued the residence permit. As already stated, that would require a successful application for the prolongation/extension of stay from the Member State that issued the permit, which is obviously to be arranged before the expiry of the permit. Finally, it is to be noted that the EU/Schengen acquis does not prevent the Member States from prolonging the stay (extending the validity of the permit) for less than 90 days. The overall duration of stay matters, when, as is the case in the example discussed here, this is more than 90 days, national law applies.”

www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-000886-ASW_EN.html

The parliamentary question, reference E-007775/2014, to which the first paragraph refers, was as follows:

“In the Commission’s view, is it possible for a third‐country national residing in an EU Member State based on a long‐term residence permit to then, once that permit has expired, remain without interruption in that same Member State based on the rules on staying in the Schengen Area — i.e., 90 days out of 180 days? If not, would it be necessary for that foreign national to leave the Member State of residence as soon as possible and then re‐enter since the relevant provisions connect the right to remain on the territory with the ‘arrival’ in that territory?

“This question mainly concerns third‐country nationals (i.e., non-European) for whom compulsory EU visa programs are in place.”

THE RIGHT TO OPEN A FRENCH BANK ACCOUNT IS NOW EASIER TO ENFORCE
As of June 13th, 2022, people who apply for a bank account and do not receive a reply within 15 days of their application can turn immediately to the Banque de France, which will designate a bank close to the applicant’s home. This procedure is open to any person residing in France or other EU country, any French person residing abroad and certain applicants who are not allowed to use a bank.

A decree published on March 13th, 2022, in the Journal Officiel simplified the procedure for people who do not have a deposit account and cannot obtain one from the institutions they have applied to. The objective is to modify the deadlines in the procedures concerning the right to an account and improve follow-up.

A person without an account who has not received a response from the bank contacted within 15 days may refer the matter to the Banque de France by providing proof of their application in the form of an acknowledgment of receipt of the registered letter sent to the banking establishment or a receipt for hand delivery of the request.

The implicit refusal system that came into force on June 13th, 2022 replaced the certificate of refusal to open an account that the bank concerned had to produce. It was sometimes difficult or even impossible to obtain this certificate. Now one only has to refer the matter to the Banque de France to assert one’s right to an account.

Within one working day of the referral, the Banque de France designates a bank near the applicant’s home or other place of their choice. Within three days of this designation, the bank chosen must provide the customer with the documents required to open an account.

The designated institution is not obliged to open an account, but it must inform the Banque de France of the reason for any refusal. It must also inform the Banque de France if it subsequently terminates the account management agreement opened under this process.

The designated bank must provide the following basic services:

• – opening, maintaining and closing the account,
• – issuing bank identity statements on request called RIB, which has the IBAN of the account,
• – effecting direct debit of bank transfers,
• – sending a monthly statement of transactions on the account,
• – carrying out cash operations,
• – providing checkbooks and bank transfers,
• – carrying out cash deposits and withdrawals at the counter or ATMs,
• – making payments by direct debit, interbank payment orders or bank transfers,
• – providing a means of remote consultation of the account balance,
• – furnishing a bank card and authorizing its use,
• – providing two bank check forms per month or an equivalent means of payment offering the same service..

Established by article 58 of the law of January 24th, 1984, on the activity and control of credit institutions, the right to a bank account is open to any individual or legal entity residing in France, to any individual requesting an account for non-business purposes and residing in another EU country and to any French person residing abroad. Applicants who are banned from banking, registered in the file of personal credit incidents or the central checks file, or in an overdraft situation may also exercise this right.

www.service-public.fr/particuliers/actualites/A15560

MY FEES ARE INCREASING ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2022
1st meeting/1st work: 350 euros for 2 hours 
Extra per hour: 150 euros 
Handling mail in my office: 50 euros per month 
Handling mail at my home: 60 euros per month 
Surcharge for out-of-office meetings: 80 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%.

QUESTION

MOVING BELONGINGS TO FRANCE AND FRENCH CUSTOMS REGULATIONS

After completing my two-year master’s at the University of Rennes next month, the university has helped us obtain a two-year extension to our passport-talent visas from the prefecture.
Now that my immigration situation is under control, my wife and I would finally like to move our household possessions to France – they have been in storage in the United States since I started living in France.
We have started working with an international moving company who will handle processing the container through French customs, but they need us to provide an Attestation de non-cession and to get a Certificate of Change of Residence from the French Consulate, if I understand correctly.
We need to explain to the consulate/customs authorities that, even though we have been physically in France longer than 12 months already, it has not been our résidence normale as defined by Les franchises douanières et fiscales de droit commun à l’importation, which states that La fréquentation d’une université ou d’une école n’implique pas le transfert de la résidence normale.
This said, we understand that the French consulate via the process of requesting a Certificate of Change of Residence should deny us such documents, based on the fact that I am holding a passeport talent visa. I also studied the document issued by French customs called Les franchises douanières et fiscales de droit commun à l’importation.
We have avis d’impots and have paid the taxes d’habitation for each of the three years during which I had passeport talent immigration status. Based on my research, these French fiscal documents would be refused by the French consulate as part of processing my Certificate of Change of Residence.Please let us know if you can provide that type of assistance, or if you need more information.

QUESTION

EMPLOYEE IMMIGRATION STATUS

I am looking for some advice regarding my immigration status. I moved from the USA a couple of years ago with an employee/salarié visa. I am currently holding a carte de séjour salarié I got last year. I have still the same employer who sponsored me in the first place. I now have a CDI, and I am renewing to receive a four-year carte de séjour salarié. I would like advice regarding changing employers once this new carte de séjour salarié has been issued.

“Mistreated” is a song by the British rock band Deep Purple taken from their 1974 album Burn. I personally prefer the version done by another British rock band, Rainbow, in 1976. That shows my musical preferences, and I assume there are still a few fans of this 70s music around to understand.

Most of the topics addressed in this issue deal with people feeling mistreated, victims of someone else’s wrongdoing. I even tell a story that happened to me. Such situations can be traumatic, even pushing some people to move back home and give up on France. Crooks and scumbags exist in all countries, and they almost always choose easy targets: newly arrived foreigners are ideal prey. But it is possible to move to France and still stay safe, especially if you do not have romantic, idealized expectations and plan the move down to the last detail. There are professionals specialized in advising foreigners in France, and following their advice helps people avoid the most common problems. The following email from a longtime reader illustrates just this point.

Dear M. Taquet,

First, I want to thank you for your regular email columns, which I find very helpful and insightful. I retired three years ago and we moved full-time to the holiday apartment we have owned for 25 years in the beautiful Alsatian region of France. I started receiving your emails before our move and they have been extremely helpful in understanding the French system. I feel very lucky because we have had no real problem with getting our carte de séjour, French driver’s license, and last year, our Carte Vitale.

ERECTING BUILDINGS FOR TAX REASONS AND FAILING TO FIX THE HOUSING CRISIS IN FRANCE
I need to give some background in order to explain the crazy situation with housing in France. The Marshall Plan poured a sizable amount of money into helping rebuild the European countries after WWII, although France did not get a lot of money this way. It took about 30 years, from 1945 to 1975, for France to rebuild and to get rid of the slums on the outskirts of major cities. The last one to be destroyed was in the city of Nanterre, the préfecture of the Hauts de Seine department: it was located where the préfecture building stands today. During this period, a lot of tall residential buildings were constructed; they were very often low-income housing projects, H.L.M. They were financed almost entirely with public money. At the same time, the private sector was making great efforts to build individual houses for more affluent people.

A new policy put in place in 1975 created a significant tax credit for people who invested in rental properties. This was a popular move for the affluent and, for a long time, it worked well enough that many university cities benefited from the program and were able to lodge students, for example, since France had hardly any campuses with dorms. But, probably because of greed more than anything else, the program started to derail completely in two interacting ways.

1 – The investors ended up being less and less affluent and therefore less knowledgeable in how to invest money, since they were just being lured by the tax credit.

2– The buildings were situated in less and less desirable locations, making them a bad investment since fewer people were interested in living there.
No. 2 raises an important point: the apartment must be rented, as it is the rent money that creates the tax credit. Today, among my clients who have invested in products based on this program, all of them are losing large amounts of money. Here are some illustrations of how bad the situation has become:

Vichy, one of the most famous spa towns in France, now has the country’s largest ratio of unoccupied rental housing, 22%  that is, 4,700 unoccupied units in a town of 25,000 people. Historical reasons, linked to WWII, could partly explain this situation, but that is not the case for Nice (12.8%), Avignon (14.3%), or Mulhouse (13.6%).

At the same time, laws passed in recent decades to increasingly protect tenants have led to another oddity: apartments in desirable locations stay empty because the owners do not want to take the risk of renting. For example, Paris has some 98,000 apartments declared vacant, about 7.3%, and Lyon has 25,000, about 9%.

In late 1998, this crazy situation led the government to issue decree No. 98-1249, by which a tax on vacant apartments was created as of 1999. During 2012 and 2013, it produced revenue that increased from 38 to 130 million euros, and the sum could reach 200 million euros in 2015. Clearly, owners would rather pay taxes than rent. Since this segment of the population  private individuals who own several pieces of real estate  usually abhors taxes and is quite creative in avoiding them, that says a lot about the fierce resistance to renting under current legislation. Common sense would dictate that owners receive lower tax bills and that more apartments are rented. This requires finding the right balance between tenants rights and those of landlords. But because this topic is as politically sensitive in France as some of the worst issues in the USA, we will see the opposite, with more apartments sitting empty and more tax revenue coming in for this very reason, and the problem continuing to be unsolved if not worsened!
http://www.lemonde.fr/logement/article/2015/02/23/ces-villes-minees-par-les-logements-vacants_4581607_1653445.html#lRHR6vQDjk8JjfS2.99

MY WIFE ATTENDED THE FRENCH NATIONALITY CEREMONY
My wife, Paula, received notice that her request for French nationality as the wife of a Frenchman had been approved and we attended the official ceremony on March 26th in a special meeting room, called la salle Marianne at the préfecture, where she received the government decree of naturalization. One oddity linked to this procedure is that the administration created a French birth certificate for her. Many people misunderstand this, taking it to mean that France wants to erase everything from your foreign past. That is absolutely not the case. In France the birth certificate has a margin on which such life events as marriage, divorce, PACS, etc., are written. Mine includes the court decision ruling that I am French, and my marital status. Hers simply states that she is married.

France has so often changed its requirements and procedures for naturalization that it is difficult to keep track of how it has evolved. Almost 20 years ago to the day after we had moved from the suburbs to Paris’s 10th arrondissement and our first child, Lucille, was born, I started the process by going to the Tribunal d’Instance at City Hall. I went there with birth certificates for both Paula and myself, our French marriage license, our livret de famille (family register) and my military file, showing that I was a lieutenant in the non-active reserve (it had already been 10 years since I had served).

In those days, the procedure had been very restrictive for four years or so. The civil servant looked at my birth certificate and asked if I could submit my Danish mother’s naturalization paper. I answered that I had never seen it and that, in those days, the wife automatically became French. So he looked at my father’s birth certificate and asked to see my grandparents’ marriage license and my grandfather’s birth certificate, as my grandmother was born Spanish. He added that, just to be on the safe side, I should come with my French great-grandparents’ marriage license and birth certificates to make sure my grand-father and therefore my father were definitely born French. (As I recently explained, even in the early 20th century, when my grandfather was born, a child born in France was not automatically French.)

Faced with this enormous request for official documents, I pulled out the decree that made me a lieutenant, along with the latest change-of-address report I had sent to the Army, and asked if these documents had any weight. He looked at them with great contempt, and warned me pompously that even if I had been able to fool the French Army and the Saint Cyr military academy into thinking I was French, I would not be able to fool him. I felt so humiliated that I left without a word. A few weeks later, I filed a petition with the Tribunal d’Instance asking it to rule on whether I was French so I could have a definitive official document that would spare me another such painful experience. A couple of months later, I received the appropriate ruling in the mail, but by then both of us had lost interest in the process. It took almost 20 years to start the procedure again. Everything had changed and for once for the better: the file was quite simple compared to what was asked for before. About a year after we submitted the request, the positive decision came in the mail..

BUYING TAX STAMPS ON LINE
This is another illustration of how the French administration is moving into the 21st century. For the first time, certain timbres fiscaux, or revenue stamps, can be bought online. Such stamps are the way fees are paid for certain administration services. The ones needed to get a new French passport can be now purchased throughhttp://timbres.impots.gouv.fr with a credit or debit card. The transaction has an ID number, which you give to the préfecture or City Hall so they can get the stamps delivered to them.

The traditional way to buy them is at a tax office (centre de finances publiques) or a tobacconist. The new method is part of a general simplification of the administration approved in 2013. The online sale of passport tax stamps is clearly an experiment, and I can see this service expanded to all revenue stamps.

By the way, getting the carte de séjour always entails some sort of fee, paid by such stamps. Now some of them can be quite expensive  maximum 550€! There is a cashier in the Paris préfecture’s main building near the métro stop City and it is easy to buy stamps  one can even use a credit card. It is difficult to find a place aside from the préfecture that sells the highest-value stamps, i.e., over 50€. I advise my clients to be efficient with their time and to go there even if their process has been handled by a branch of the préfecture elsewhere. But some of them are so traumatized by the times they had to go to the central office that they cannot force themselves to enter the dreaded building even though it will save them hours of searching for another place that sells the stamps. I am no psychiatrist and therefore I do not try to treat this trauma.

OFFICE TO CLOSE FOR A NON-SUMMER VACATION!
My office will be closed from the evening of Wednesday June 3rd until 9AM on Wednesday June 17th. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. The service I offer of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed. I will let individual clients know how to receive or retrieve their mail during this period.

Best regards,

QUESTION

FRENCH NATURALIZATION PROCEDURE – WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED

I would have found the March 2015 article a lot more interesting if you had specified just how much easier it is now to become French. I have been living here legally for over 30 years and currently hold a carte de résident, which is valid for ten years. I would love to get French nationality if it did not involve so much paperwork. Your link at the end just sent us to an article with statistics. This is no help at all. Could you be a bit more specific please?

QUESTION

WRONG FISCAL STATUS FOR THE CARTE DE SEJOUR LINKED TO A LICENSED PROFESSION

I tried to work as an architect in France a few years ago and there was a lot of confusion between my French lawyer, the préfecture and my French accountant. The latter one advised me to create a corporation called SASU (société par actions simplifiée unipersonnelle). The préfecture considered my position within the SASU to be the manager of a commercial corporation and therefore saw my profession as that of a commerçant, (a merchant). Unfortunately, according to the Order of Architects, that is incompatible with working as an architect in France. Yet the Order accepted the registration of a SAS or SASU (which is basically a company created by an individual rather than a group). This was clearly nuts: the préfecture gives you papers with the term commerçant on them, which is against the “regulation of the profession; and the Order of Architects accepts the registration as a commerçant under a SASU, against their own code of practice!
A lawyer whom I took on later said I should have had profession libérale status. It was the darn accountant who came up with the SASU and sold me on it, thus increasing his workload and fees, though I can’t say that was his intent. If the business had been successful, perhaps the SASU would have been a good structure for accounting and tax reasons. You don’t need to respond to this, unless you like, as it is water under the bridge.

I am now waiting for a final contract from a firm offering me a position in France and am taking note that it would be safe to stay put in the US and imagine a longer waiting period than they hope for from their side.

I could, I guess, be in France for the 89 days allowed with no visa, not get paid (or have some honorarium paid to my US account, as I will then be mostly working from the Swiss office), and just return to New York for my visa application appointment at the New York consulate once the permis de travail request from the employer has been approved, as it seems there are no exceptions to applying from one’s home’ city. That is costly (an extra round-trip ticket, visible stamps in my passport as well). What do you think of all this?

I have already used the title BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER from the title song of Simon & Garfunkel’s final studio album, and I did not want to use it again.

A bridge is a good symbol for the need to reach out, sometimes pretty far, when one lives in a foreign country. It can be seen as a link from the unfairness wherein the foreigner needs to do more, and therefore feels discriminated against, to the help that can come from someone who unexpectedly reaches out from nowhere and keeps the foreigner out of trouble.

The month of May in France is often called « le mois des ponts ».

LES PONTS DU MOIS DE MAI – THE « BRIDGES » OF MAY
Americans who come to France to work are warned about the special phenomenon that happens in May. It is referred as les ponts du mois de mai, which can be translated as « the bridges of May, » although that means nothing in English because the concept is peculiar to France.

May 1st (Labor Day) and May 8th (VE Day, the end of World War II) are national holidays. So is the Feast of the Ascension, which is celebrated 40 days after Easter and therefore is almost always a Thursday in May. Many French employees take advantage of these paid holidays and ask to have one or two days of paid vacation in conjunction with them to take a long weekend. For example, if the holiday is a Thursday, you take Friday as a vacation day and end up with a four-day break while using just one day of your paid vacation. Some years it is possible to have a total of twelve days off work but only use up three days of vacation. Of course, the immediate impact of this is that French business at the national level crawls for about a month because not enough people are working.

The pont (bridge) is the vacation day you use to link the bank holiday and the weekend. Faire le pont (doing or making the bridge) is an expression commonly used at this time of year.

APPLYING FOR FRENCH CITIZENSHIP VIA MARRIAGE: THE INTERVIEW
On the 3rd of April, my wife, Paula, had her interview with the préfecture as part of the procedure to obtain French nationality by virtue of her marriage to me. The very first part of the procedure took place nearly 20 years ago, in 1995, when I was initially told that I was not French enough for her to have this done because my mother was Danish and my father’s mother was Spanish. I had thought that being born in France of at least one French-born parent would create enough of a French nationality paper trail to allow me to pass on my French nationality to my spouse. In those days, according to the civil servant, it was not. The man told me I needed to produce my grandfather’s birth certificate and marriage license, as well as one of these documents for his parents, my great-grandparents. Rather than try to find these old documents, I petitioned the Tribunal d’Instance, or Small Claims Court, to rule on my French nationality. Some time later, I received the court’s decision: I was French from birth and being married to an American did not make me lose my nationality. But we had both lost interest in pursuing the project by the time this ruling was issued. About a year ago, however, my wife asked me to start the process again, and this time the regulation was more lenient (and, of course my French nationality was a matter of record). The file was composed of American documents certified in accordance with the Hague Apostille Convention and officially translated, plus other documents proving the fact that we have always lived together, our respective work history, and so on.

She received a letter setting up a meeting for a Thursday morning, and it said my presence was mandatory. We arrived a little early and the civil servant met us almost on time, less than five minutes late, which by préfecture standards is incredible. The first part of the meeting was devoted to making sure we had brought the originals of the copies we sent. The second part was what felt like a chat about our life, our centers of interests, hobbies, the children’s education – the kind of things one would talk about at a party. The reality, from the civil servant’s side, was a series of questions to verify how much each spouse knows about the other, and how integrated they are in each other’s family. Paula enjoyed this discussion, adding details and anecdotes, while I was more interested in making sure that her French credentials had been recorded and the documentation secured in the file. As can sometime happen at the prefecture, what is supposed to be an interview, which the foreigner often expects to be questioned or a French quiz, feels more like an informal chat.

In some situations, the foreigner thinks the file is complete because it has all the documents on the official list, and then finds the civil servant short and rude, in a one-way conversation that does not take the applicant’s excellent level of French into consideration. The situation depends on many variables, but here are some guidelines.
* A French list almost always indicates the information needed and needs to be tailored to a specific situation. This can considerably increase the number of documents to bring.

* In France, the file always talks louder than you can. So make sure you see it as a two-step process. The interview is not the time to fix what you did wrong with the file.

* The civil servants at the préfecture are more like members of the police than paper pushers. They rule, you comply. There is next to no chance of having an equal relationship with equal time for each party to speak. In short, you can ask for information and maybe some advice, but you cannot demand things, and you certainly won’t get anywhere waving an American passport and saying, I am an American citizen, I have rights!

I feel this is the most important advice I can give on how to handle such situations. Yes, there are rules that the French administration complies with, and yes, foreigners residing in France obtain certain rights and protection.

FRENCH INTERNET PROVIDER SAGA
I received the following message from a reader:

Thank you so much Jean for the piece on Internet providers. As we spend 90 to 120 days (of which we try to spend 30 out of the Schengen countries) in France every summer, we have that continued issue with home Internet providers (including phone internet with rules that are guaranteed to change annually). In addition to proving we are moving back to the USA (worked once) you have to add the complication that you have to return the equipment before you leave AND acquire new equipment when you get back. The wasted time and energy of all 3 operations encouraged us to bite the bullet and just leave the Internet all year around. To your point Orange won simply by wearing us out. They made canceling so hard that it was not worth the effort and the colossal waste of time waiting in line to return the equipment. Add to that re-establishing the service when you come back which may be a Saturday so you may be without service for as long as week by the time you lease the equipment again, get it working, get help on-line if needed, etc.

DISCRIMINATION IN FRANCE: NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU THINK
60 millions de consommateurs, the magazine of a French consumer advocate group, recently published the results of a study about people’s access to good housing. The results were appalling.

Many foreigners whom I help to find a bare-walls, three-year-lease rental feel they have been severely discriminated against because of the insane level of guarantees that landlords and management companies ask for. I strongly believe this has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with the level of security needed to get a lease in France, especially in Paris. These are French people who have the same profile as the foreigners mentioned earlier, and who moved back to France without an employer and with no family members left in France, to face the same demands described in my February 2014 issue.

On the other hand, what the magazine describes is real discrimination based on race, foreign origin and personal situation, even against people who are French citizens with a stable employment track record and relatives in France.

In the study, people presenting themselves as belonging to one of five different groups telephoned in response to 150 ads for rental properties in Paris and elsewhere in France. All the candidates supposedly had identical salaries and professional positions, but otherwise the profiles were quite different: average single childless French person, elderly person, single mother, person with African-sounding name and accent, etc.

The « average French person » never had any trouble getting an appointment to visit the property. The « African » caller only succeeded two-thirds of the time.

In Paris, would-be renters are usually asked to have a salary equal to three times the rent. Agents handling the properties checked this only nine times for the « French » caller but 43 times for the « African » one.

Interestingly enough, the « French single mother with one child » got as bad results as the « African » caller, and when people of these two profiles did get an appointment to visit, they were asked to submit a much thicker file, giving a lot more detailed information.

It does not make anyone feel any better to see how difficult it is to find a long-term rental in Paris. A new law called A.L.U.R. (pour l’Accès au Logement et à l’Urbanisme Rénové), sponsored by the former minister for housing, Cecile Duflot, is supposed to counter this type of discrimination, creating regional commissions called « les commission de contrôle des professions immobilières » to fight it.

The truth is that such discrimination is very difficult to document in a way that holds up in a French court. What is more, in the Parisian market landlords get so many applications that they have an ample choice of candidates and therefore can choose on subjective criteria.

My opinion is that as long as the law increases protection of the tenant, the market will react by being more and more selective because of the risk involved in choosing a tenant. A sudden huge increase in the number of apartments for rent in Paris would force landlords to change their tune, but the chance of that happening is about as great as the chance of the market being opened to all profiles overnight.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: TIME TO DECLARE AND PAY
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would remind everybody that the paper version of the 2013 income declaration must be filed in France by May 20th and the second partial income tax payment (deuxieme tiers) is to be paid by May 15th (midnight, in both cases). The forms have been available since April 9th and people could start declaring online on April 16th at the website www.impots.gouv.fr. Everything is much earlier than usual this year. You can file your declaration on the website as long as this is not your first time filing, since you need your tax ID number and some access codes.

If you do file online, you benefit from a later deadline. The schedule depends on your postal code: départements 01 to 19 must file by Tuesday May 27th, 20 to 49 by Tuesday June 3rd and 50 or higher by Tuesday June 10th.

An important reminder: if you are a French fiscal resident, you must declare your worldwide income to the French authorities even if you do not earn any income in France, do not have the right to work in France or truly do not work in France. Just because there is no penalty to pay does not mean it is legal to neglect to file. To put it simply, if you hold a carte de séjour or an immigration visa validated with an OFII stamp, chances are you are a French fiscal resident.

Best regards,

QUESTION

OBTAINING AN EU CARTE DE SEJOUR

I have both American and British nationalities, and I am married to an American; I have been living in France for a while. I had an expat status for three years based on my American citizenship, and I was laid off a few months ago. I chose to stay in France with my wife so I asked for a carte de séjour, this time as an EU citizen. The préfecture refuses to give it to me because I have no job, and I receive no unemployment subsidy. The préfecture says that I do not belong here. This is outrageous; I am an EU citizen and I know I have the right to live in France. Can you explain what is going on?

QUESTION

VARIOUS TYPES OF FISCAL STATUS OF MONEY EARNED IN FRANCE

Several years ago, I hired an undocumented alien to be my cleaning lady. She first did my home and then over the years, she did the apartments I own and rent and now other landlords use her services. She does a wonderful job, and manages the tasks in a very autonomous way. I pay her with CESU as much as I can manage it, so the majority of her income comes from the other owners who mostly do not reside in France. How can she manage her income declaration to the tax office while she is an undocumented alien and once she obtains a legal immigration status?

QUESTION

CARTE DE SEJOUR COMMERCANT & K-BIS

I work for a small multinational and I have been appointed the Senior Manager of the French branch located in Paris. I asked for a long-stay visa at the French consulate in Chicago, and after several trips there, waiting a long while and giving an impressive amount of documents, I finally got it. Upon my arrival in France, I had to redo exactly the same thing, giving the same documents but this time to the préfecture. The French staff helped some. I thought the last meeting would be the final one but the préfecture stated that I needed to come once again with an updated K-Bis. I do not get it  the current one has my name on it and the address of the company’s headquarters in France where my office is. What more do they want?