A cherry bomb is a spherically shaped firework. It is also a 1976 song by The Runaways. The all-female teen band did not last very long (1975-1978) but their rhythm/lead guitar player, Joan Jett, has managed to have a very long career.

Watching the demonstrations on January 21st all over the USA, I wondered if President Trump had not activated one too many cherry bombs.It would be unfair to former President Obama to state that it felt as though during his two terms things did not move. History will tell what his real achievements and failures were. But based on what I saw, aside from his inaugurations,his two terms did not bring massive demonstrations such as those seen on January 21st. The Black Lives Matter movement tried, and succeeded up to a point in getting people out in the streets marching. But, from what I could see, most of the country did not get involved. One could make the point that on January 21st it was mainly women marching; it felt like the women of mainstream America were demonstrating. One demonstration, even as massive as it was, does not at all indicate what the next four or maybe eight years will bring.

The Runaways were known for their forceful opposition to many views expressed in their time, especially about women. Time will tell if their spirit will continue to sweep the streets of American cities.

AUTO-ENTREPRENEUR “AND THE ISSUANCE OF THE” CARTE DE SÉJOUR
Laws and regulations should change as little as possible in order for the populace to have stability and reliability. Therefore, reforms and changes should occur infrequently and only in due time. They must be done sufficiently well so that they can last a long time. I believe this is true everywhere.

However, regarding the” auto-entrepreneur “fiscal status, the French administration has been caught between two opposite desires, which make it very difficult to form consistent policy. On the one hand, the status is very popular and growing numbers of people are signing up for it. On the other hand, employers and businesses abuse the status by outsourcing to these independent workers tasks that employees previously did. This means they escape the very protected status of the French employee. Uber is the perfect example of this, with drivers going on strikes as if they were normal employees and the government getting involved.

The latest change is that” auto-entrepreneur “status has been merged into a new one called” micro-entreprise. “It might sound like nothing more than a cosmetic name change with not much more to it. But for the French self-employed” carte de séjour “holder it makes a big difference, and for the better. To make it simple, as the French administration states, the” “micro-social” “aspect can be separated from the” “micro-fiscal.””

This demands an explanation: I had to ask three times in early January to make sure I understood the scope of this change.

The” micro-social “element is one of the best things about” auto-entrepreneur “status: the ability to declare the amount of sales monthly or quarterly and the associated social charges (which must be paid with every declaration), and, for those who choose to do so, the possibility to pay the income tax at the same time. For those who prefer the traditional way, income taxes can continue to be paid three times a year. This also means that the declaration requires just one payment, which is allocated to various taxes including health coverage and retirement by the French administration.

The” micro-fiscal “aspect means the law defines how much profit you have made based on recorded sales. This is another of the best parts of” auto-entrepreneur “status, mainly because even though you cannot claim business expenses, you can run your business with virtually no accounting, since all that counts is the money made.

Now, keep in mind that the prefecture takes a dim view of requests for a” carte de séjour “based on” auto-entrepreneur “status. The worst situation is to ask for professional self-employed status, or” profession libérale, “in which case the prefecture asks for documents that are impossible to obtain.

This latest change, however, means it is once again possible to benefit from the “micro-fiscal “aspect while turning down the” micro-social, “which was the stigma that” auto-entrepreneur “status had in the eyes of the prefecture. In short, by separating the two, it is once again possible to easily obtain a” carte de séjour “while being self-employed under the fiscal status of” MICRO BNC.”

MINORS IN FRANCE TRAVELING ABROAD
In an earlier column, I talked about the possibility of having a procedure for traveling minors reinstated sooner than later. French children will now once again have to have special permission, the” autorisation de sortie du territoire “or AST, to leave France without their parents. This had been terminated in 2012, since traveling in Europe had become increasingly easy, especially since the creation of the Schengen Area. Field trips outside France became very common, and children of parents from different European countries could also travel for vacations by themselves.

In about the past two years or so, though, the situation has changed and another priority has arisen: fighting terrorism and radicalization. Reinstating the obligation to ask the administration’s authorization for a minor to leave France is meant to prevent young people from going to the Middle East and joining ISIS. I understand and respect this decision, issued on November 2nd 2016, as it makes it a lot more difficult for such troubled teenagers to leave France.

At the end of October, some 1,860 minors in France had been identified as having been radicalized, 400 had left France to join ISIS and 19 had been identified as fighters.

The document needed for French minors to travel outside France is exactly the same as the one for traveling non-French children, whether alone or with their parents, have always needed to prove they are French residents.

The fact that this rule is now enforced for French children as well shows that if there was some leniency in the past for children traveling with their parents in and out of France, those days are now gone.

For more information (in French), see www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/01/15/les-mineurs-devront-avoir-une-autorisation-de-sortie-du-territoire-pour-voyager_5062994_3224.html

FRENCH GIFTS TO CHILDREN
France, like many countries, allows parents to pass assets on to their children and sometimes grandchildren during their lifetime and pay little or no tax on the gift. But this right can conflict with the French rule of absolute equality between children of a given parent.

An initial tax waiver is allowed on a gift to a child of up to 100,000 euros every 15 years. The giver must be less than 80 years old to benefit from the exemption. For a gift to a grandchild, the maximum is 31,865 euros every 15 years.

This kind of gift is completely different from what is called in French a” don manuel “– roughly, a gift given “by hand.” This is the customary gift given for a birthday, Christmas or some other special occasion, such as a wedding, graduation or birth. Even a gift of money can fall into this category. The main distinction between gifts of assets and customary gifts is the value of the gift compared to the net worth and income of the giver; the relationship or ties between the two people are also considered.

To avoid trouble during the giver’s lifetime as well as when his or her estate is handled, The first kind of gift should be recorded with the tax office and, just as important, documented by a” notaire.” This brings us to the specifically French concept of absolute equality between siblings born of the same parent.

If all large donations are recorded, and customary giving is reasonably equal, handling the giver’s estate is quite simple. How much is the estate worth at the time of death? How much did each child receive? Any discrepancies are accounted for in the apportioning of the estate among the children.

Now, if gifts to children are not recorded and it is difficult to trace or even just obtain an estimate of the value at the time of giving, it may be virtually impossible to settle the estate because the” notaire “will never be able to ascertain if the split is fair and legal.

This is a recipe for a long and awful lawsuit between siblings if some are certain that there has been significant favoritism that cannot be quantified and therefore there is a strong belief that everything is unfair. This feeling can fuel endless court battles.

For foreigners, the simplest thing to do is make a French will stating that the applicable law is that of the country citizenship. This alleviates the impact of French law, though it does not guarantee an absence of lawsuits. Note that for those who have renounced their American citizenship and retain only French nationality, this solution is not possible.

For more information (in French), see www.lemonde.fr/argent/article/2016/07/02/comment-donner-sans-passer-par-la-case-impot_4962493_1657007.html
and www.lemonde.fr/famille/article/2015/11/30/le-don-non-declare-un-cadeau-empoisonne_4820652_1764986.html

IS HELPING UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS LEGAL IN FRANCE?
It can be very difficult for foreigners living in France to understand that undocumented aliens have rights conferred by the French state and enforced by the administration.

In the USA, the status of undocumented aliens was the topic of heated debates long before the last presidential election, and it is certainly an even hotter topic now.

I remember the first time my American wife watched undocumented aliens demonstrating in the streets of Paris with uniformed police protecting them during their march through the city. Her comment, as pertinent now as it was then, was, “Why are the police not arresting those people and deporting them, since they are in France illegally?”

A more recent example of this situation was the so-called jungle outside Calais. For years, the police were instructed to crack down on foreigners there and on the people helping them – but at the same time, the Ministry of Social Services was negotiating with the major nonprofits working there on how to make sure decent living conditions were provided.

Even more recent is the situation on the Italian-French border. The main roads on the Riviera are now closed to migrants, who therefore are going farther north seeking ways to enter France. This takes them into steep mountains similar to the Rockies, where the winter weather is brutal. In the Roya Valley, local people are getting organized to help immigrants stay alive, finding shelters and driving them on the difficult roads. They are not paid to do this; on the contrary, they spend their own money to help these people.

Since the beginning of the year, the police have been arresting people helping migrants and charging them with a felony, namely” aide à l’entrée, au séjour et à la circulation d’étrangers en situation irrégulière “(helping undocumented aliens enter, stay and travel in France). The charge is normally brought against criminal rings profiting from migrants.

At the same time, French law states that there is an obligation of aid, and failure to meet it is also a felony:”le fait pour quiconque s’abstient volontairement de porter à une personne en péril l’assistance que, sans risque pour lui ou pour les tiers, il pouvait lui prêter soit par son action personnelle, soit en provoquant un secours.” (willful refusal to help a person in danger when, at no risk to oneself or others, one could have helped personally or by calling for emergency assistance).

The police argue that if no help were being provided, migrants would go elsewhere so as to avoid certain death. The nonprofits and activists reply that the migrants are there and will die without help.

So far, in the few rulings issued by the Nice Criminal Court, those involved were found not guilty. But that is not the end of the story, as police continue to arrest and prosecute the Good Samaritans.

This situation has been on my mind: can I get in trouble by giving advice to undocumented aliens? When does someone become an undocumented alien? What about a person who lacks French ID for six months while an appeal is reviewed before getting the appointment to obtain the ID? Is such a person complying with the requirements to obtain legal status in France while waiting for documents to submit?

I am sure we will hear more about legal and illegal immigrants in France as the current French presidential campaign cranks into full gear.

REDESIGNING MY WEBSITE
Since my Christmas vacation starts soon and there is no January issue, during this time I plan on having my website redesigned, mainly so as to use more recent software to update and manage it. This means there may be a couple of days when the site will not be online, and I may have difficulty accessing my email. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but we will do everything we can to keep this outage as short as possible.

Best regards,

QUESTION

HOW TO PROVE FRENCH NATIONALITY?

I am a dual French-US citizen, born in the USA of a French father and an American mother. My father was born in France, and he and his parents were naturalized there in the 1920s. My wife and I have lived in the US and Costa Rica, and we will retire in France soon. I have my carte nationale d’identité and our livret de famille as proof of our marriage.  My question is whether, for a normal existence in France, I need to apply for the certificat de nationalité française. If so, does submitting the request for verification entail a risk that I might lose my citizenship altogether? 
I am concerned because the citizenship criteria have changed many times since the 1920s.

QUESTION

RECEIVING FRENCH AND AMERICAN PENSIONS AT THE SAME TIME

I approach my retirement at the tender age of 69. After working in the USA for approximately ten years, I have been working in France ever since. I decided to start receiving my US Social Security at the age of 66. I receive approximately 500 euros a month. I recently checked with CNAV about how much I could expect for my French retirement benefits. Although I won’t ever have all my semesters, I was pleased to find out that combined with my US benefits, I would be able to survive, after a fashion.I was, however, shocked to find out from the US Social Security advisers at the US Embassy that once I begin receiving my French retirement benefits, my US benefits will be cut by 40% to 50% unless “vous est attribué dans le cadre de l’accord entre la France et les Etats-Unis” is written on my French benefit statement. They sent me a copy of the Windfall Elimination Provision, which seems to say that the only way I could continue to receive the entire 500 euros from the US is if my French employers had deducted not only the French taxes but also US taxes from my French income. If I understand this correctly it seems to be quite unjust. I would assume that the 500 euros I receive from the US is based on the contributions that were deducted from my income when I worked there. I don’t understand why that would change if I hadn’t also been “double taxed” when I work in France. I hope that you will find this to be an interesting topic because I would love to hear what you think about it.

“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?

French custom dictates that New Year’s wishes can be expressed until the end of January, so I have managed it a few hours before the deadline.

The New Year comes for many of us with a long list of good resolutions; it is the visible line of entering the New Year that makes the desire to improve so strong. If only decisions in life were always that easy to make, the line that easy to spot. The reality is so different, especially while living in a foreign country: What is the right thing to do? Whom should I trust? What do I want now? (this often means What is available for me?) Am I safe? The perpetual absence of road signs other than on the streets, fuels the confusion, exacerbates the feeling of being in danger. Obtaining legal status after years of fighting is nothing less than a paradigm shift that is never anticipated and for which the person is never prepared enough.

Small children for centuries have played hopscotch: the lines are drawn on the sidewalk and they hop from one place to another. As responsible adults, good parents, we think we know where we are going. As foreigners, struggling in a foreign country, we too often look like unsteady children playing a game, cursing because we do not see where we are landing!

FREEDOM OF SPEECH – THE ATTACK IN PARIS ON WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7th
I drafted this entire issue, including the title, before New Year’s Eve, so I thought I was done. But now, for weeks France has been faced with a powerful and traumatic crisis after the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo. A lot, maybe too much, has been said about this.

In an attempt to explain to friends in the USA what had just happened, I quickly posted on Facebook that the shooting could be compared to someone gunning down the team of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show at Comedy Central. In short, eight people living in France were killed because they mocked, caricatured and ridiculed, which was their job. They were entertainers, comics, cartoonists more than journalists, and they never referred themselves as journalists. They had no agenda, especially no political agenda, other than ridiculing any kind of authority. Any one drawing, picked out of the magazine in isolation, could appear to be very offensive, ridiculing a minority, but if one went through the entire magazine one would see all three monotheist religions, the army, the police, schools and the government ridiculed one way or the other, usually more than once per issue.

I would like to add some historical perspective to this. With Mr. Honoré Daumier arose the modern political cartoon in the early 19th century. This is what Wikipedia states about him: Honoré Daumier (February 26, 1808 – February 10, 1879) was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century.

« Daumier produced over 500 paintings, 4000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 1000 drawings and 100 sculptures. A prolific draftsman, he was perhaps best known for his caricatures of political figures and satires on the behavior of his countrymen, although posthumously the value of his painting has also been recognized. »

So it is safe to say that French political cartoons are almost 200 year old. This is a deeply rooted tradition. Look at Daumier’s cartoons and see how modern they are, keeping their razor edge after nearly two centuries.

Before that there was the position of the fou du roi, the jester, which as Wikipedia tells us was a historical entertainer employed to entertain a ruler or other nobility in medieval or Tudor times. «  Much of the entertainment was performed in a comic style and many jesters made contemporary jokes in word or song about people or events well known to their audiences. » The jester appointed to the king made jokes about the rulers of the time, even mocking the king himself to his face.

Thus, even before the concept of freedom of speech was conceived as a right that people should enjoy, France had developed a tradition of mocking the rulers and the authorities of the country. At the same time, especially since the 20th century, France and many other countries in Europe have put limits on the freedom of speech. My explanation is that these countries experienced first hand the results of Nazi propaganda and wanted to be able to block any further racist propaganda right away, should such reappear. Many American media outlets and public figures over the years have strongly criticized France for putting such strong limits on this freedom, since the American view is that it should be as unlimited as possible.
Yet very few American media outlets have shown or printed recent Charlie Hebdo cartoons because they were too extreme for the American public and would not have been understood. At the same time, very strong support came from the American people and American media because it was clear to them that the essence of freedom of speech had been attacked in a deadly way, and it was not just France that was attacked.

I believe that the French philosopher Voltaire (pen name of François-Marie Arouet, November 21st 1694 – May 30th 1778) best captured the very essence of freedom of speech in France and many countries in the world.

His « Treatise on Tolerance »,published in 1763, chastised the Catholic authorities in France for showing intolerance toward religious minorities, likening it to the persecution faced by early Christian communities. He also argued that the personal beliefs of one group or another could not stand above the law of the land.

As he explained it, this freedom had to go both ways to fully exist. One has the right to argue, dispute, express, publicize an opinion. In other words, I have the right to dispute your ideas that are the opposite of mine, but I also have the obligation to fight for you if your right to express your opinions, which I strongly disagree with, is being taken away from you. Interestingly, since the tragedy, this book has become a best-seller in France.

Most French people normally do not buy Charlie Hebdo and are critical of its contents. Yet about 4 million of them showed up in the streets of Paris and many other cities in France on Sunday January 11th to show their complete support of the idea that this magazine has the right to exist and to express opinions they quite often disagree with.

France has the right to freedom of speech in its DNA, just as the USA and several other countries do. But that right is lived differently in each of those countries. Let’s also keep in mind that a large number of countries have no such rights.

THE DIFFICULT CHOICE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FACE
Below is the testimony of a victim of domestic violence who initially chose not to press charges against her French husband, hoping in this way to focus on rebuilding herself faster and better. The consequence is that she waited so long that the statute of limitations under French law applies and no prosecution is now possible. This is a dilemma I have heard often. It illustrates how broken down inside the person is. Anger pushes for punishment, for the idea that the world should know that he is the villain and she is the victim, and that therefore she should press charges. For so long she has heard that she was doing everything wrong, that she was worthless, and so on. The desire for healing, on the other hand, makes it seem better to just stay away from him and everything about him, let go, or on occasion even flee but in doing so, the victim far too often gives up rights and protection. The need to be left alone is very important, as it is a positive way out of the condition. As the statement below shows, however, both have serious limits, as too often the perpetrator, even today, gets away with it 100% and most women struggle for a very long time before they are functional enough, inside and outside, to overcome their trauma.

Pressing charges can be seen as getting closure, because if the state finds the husband guilty it validates the wife as being truly the victim. This logic, however, also creates two very serious problems. First, the victim feels even worse and sometimes is completely incapable of handling a verdict of not guilty. The second is that whatever sentence may be passed is never enough to make up for the pain and suffering felt during the violence itself and during the related post-traumatic stress syndrome, which often lasts for years after the violence stops. One should not forget that a criminal trial means detailing all the physical violence and therefore reliving it, which can be highly traumatic.

Not pressing charges, in my experience, prevents the victim from getting full closure. Even though the sentence is always insufficient, it is still a strong and official signal that there is a perpetrator and a victim. The other issue is that leaving on your own and working alone through the hardship of recreating a life is extremely difficult. Just to start with, the husband can stall the divorce proceedings. There is also a chance that leaving does not produce the hoped-for results. It often feels like adding insult to injury. This is especially true when the woman leaves home to escape violence and is found guilty of abandoning the family home, which can only be disputed if some violence has been done. Often the woman cannot fight effectively during the divorce proceedings without producing definitive domestic violence documentation, which can only be obtained for sure by opening a criminal investigation. The end result is too often that the self-reconstruction of oneself is poorly done, and since the statute of limitations is three years for felony charges and ten years for a crime, the victim often finds that it is too late to press charges against an abusive partner.

I do not believe there is a right or a wrong choice in these circumstances. I see people struggling for many years about whether they should have made one or the other choice. I have reached the conclusion that the victim needs both at the same time, which for a great many of them is beyond what they can handle.

HER TESTIMONY
I have been a victim of domestic violence. The last time was Sunday November 15, 2009, when my husband thrust three handfuls of a potato dish into my mouth and throat, forcing me to swallow them. My call for help was heard by the children who were in their room and by a neighbor who rang at our door and helped me get up from the chair I was seated in the whole time. When the neighbor warned that she would not accept any violence, my husband expressly stated that there was no violence going on in the apartment.

I did not file a complaint.
The following day I went to work Despite my attempt to conceal the signs, several colleagues noticed my face was swollen and two pushed me to see a doctor and file a complaint, since it wasn ’t the first time they had noticed marks. I was put on sick leave. I mostly suffered psychologically and thought that if I was treated in the way it was because it was all I was worth and thought of drowning myself in the bathtub.

Of a sound and reasonable family, I had a burst of lucidity and scolded myself as my mother would have done – you do not commit suicide for a broken heart! – and went out to see the social worker for help and shelter. She and the person at the center she called both listened and were very understanding, welcoming and professional, but there was no room for me. I understood then that if I wanted to work my way out, I could count only on myself. Sheerly through good luck, I was first able to temporarily move to a relative’s apartment before I rented my own apartment as of January 2010.

The process of « working my way out » has been very long (and is not over) despite my best efforts. For a while, on top of working weekly with psychologists at a medical center since 2006, I was seeing a psychiatrist-psychotherapist. During this same period, I also set a rule that I should spend at least one moment I could really appreciate every weekend, in order to help myself to value life and find pleasure in it again. I worked very hard at not being a victim, and I put a lot of importance in not sinking and going down, but in « working my way out, » but four years later, the pain and the difficulties (e.g., just thinking correctly) are still there.

The reason for this most likely lies in the fact that while I was trying to reconstruct myself, I was also going through an unnecessarily difficult divorce. Our divorce procedure is just like our marriage and reflects his abusive behavior – lies, intimidation, manipulation, reversing of situations – rendering it difficult to work my way out of my confusion.

On November 15, 2012, at the expiration of the limitation period, I took the time to examine whether I would file for complaint or not. My own battle to work my way out seemed already hard enough to get through; I could not take up another battle that would most probably bring me down or backward more than anything, so I did not. However, since 2012, after the unsuccessful mediation procedure I was obliged to ask for to have my rights respected, during which my ex insisted that he address me as « vous » in order to mark the distance he wished from me, I was able to live more serenely.

Though I am still going through the hardship of my divorce, I am much better and stronger, and I sense that today, if I had the possibility to file a complaint against my ex, I would do it out of the same sense of obligation that pushed me not do so at the time.
I consider that my first duty as a responsible citizen is to inform of this horrific violence done to women. From the moment I could not find refuge at the women’s shelter in 2009, I understood that I had to help myself and that what was important was not to become a burden for myself and for society. And, if I did not file a complaint, though I recognized the harm my ex could do in his state of mind, it was out of that obligation.

My wish today is that the legislation take in consideration first and above all the reality and needs of the victims, allowing them a better chance of prosecuting those who were responsible for the violence done to them and, in that way, also taking in consideration the real needs of our society, which are to save the victims and take legal action against the authors of violence.

MY ANSWER
The specific situation of foreign spouses of French husbands is that they are often very much under the power of these men from an immigration point of view. It starts with the fact that they get their carte de séjour vie privée et familiale on the grounds that they are married to a French citizen and this card will be taken away if they leave before their third wedding anniversary. My experience is that abusive men take full advantage of this domination, explaining that:

– the wife will be immediately deported if she leaves home,

– their French children will always stay with the French parent,

– the woman will be jailed for kidnapping if she tries to move back to her home with the children, and so on.

Domestic violence is evil by its nature and this total domination destroys the woman. Abusive men seem to have amazing imaginations, finding countless reasons to scare their spouses away from leaving home. Often the mental control is the hardest to break. Foreign spouses, whose right to live in France depends 100% on their husband, must fight against highly controlling behavior and the corresponding feelings of helplessness, in addition to what I have just described. For one thing, such women feel unable to contact the police, since they fear that if they report the domestic violence, the husband will be taken into custody, which will break up their life together. Wives fear the police, seeing them as French authority figures who will systematically favor the husband, though this it is not true. Going to social services and asking for support can also be frightening, since the women who are placed in shelters are protected from their partners, but they believe that they can be deported as a result of leaving the family home. The only recourse is to press charges but the help of the social worker often is not enough to overcome their fear of the police.

The main difference I have seen regarding leaving the home and pressing criminal charges, is that quite often women raised in a Western way will take the risk of moving out, sometimes on the spur of the moment, believing that they are saving their life by doing so. They also think that they will be able to make it outside the home, even in a foreign country without the ability to speaking the language well. In my experience, women from the Indian subcontinent or East Asia are so afraid – of the police and deportation, of their partners or husbands – that it is much rarer for them to move out. This is sad, since the préfecture fully accepts that, in cases of documented, serious domestic violence, a foreign wife must move out of the house before the three-year period mentioned above has elapsed. Documentation of the violence is well handled by the police through a medical visit to a hospital’s forensics section and the police investigation that follows.

Here the issue is one of trust as well as passing along accurate information. Someone who is believable needs to reach out to abused spouses so that they get the right information and believe it. But that is a completely different topic.

MY TAKE ON FATCA
Once in a while I get a call that truly makes my day. In early December, one of my readers called me to ask for my opinion and professional analysis regarding the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The reason she called me was that she had reviewed my past issues for over a year and could not find any mention of it. Her comment was so endearing that I want to share it with you: « I count on your column to inform me of all the new legislation that affects Americans living in France. Since you never wrote about FATCA, and I just spent a long time reviewing your column pretty far back, I was wondering if it is as serious as it sounds. You surely must have something to say about it if it is that important. » This is an ego booster that lasted for several days!

However, it was easy for me to explain that my focus is exclusively about French legislation and it is extremely rare for me to comment about any other legislation, including from the USA, since I do not feel that I can be a professional in these fields.

Still, since I received this adorable call, I feel compelled to state that I know just enough about it to stay away from it, leaving this topic, as well as the Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report (FBAR), to people who have a professional knowledge of these regulations affecting American citizens holding accounts in foreign banks. To avoid adding to the dissension among the various groups fighting and/or explaining this type of regulation, all I will give is the page of the IRS website describing these regulations: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Foreign-Account-Tax-Compliance-Act-FATCA

FRENCH INCOME TAX REMINDER
French income tax is generally paid in three installments: on February 15th, May 15th and September 15th. Everyone should have received the applicable tax statement by now. If you have not received it, but you know that you owe French income tax for 2014, you must pay the required amount, which is one-third of the total tax you paid in 2013. Errors made by the French administration never exempt the individual from complying with the law.

Best regards,

QUESTION

ACQUIRING FRENCH NATIONALITY AS A FAMILY

In your December 14 issue of your newsletter, you wrote that: “A child born in France to two foreign parents can claim French nationality first at age 13. Then my question is that once the minor child becomes French at age 13, may the two non- French parents apply for French citizenship? If YES, then under what program or rationale can they do that? Also, may a younger sibling also apply for French nationality before the age of 13?

In 1972, the French singer-songwriter Michel Delpech wrote and performed the song « Que Marianne était jolie » (How beautiful Marianne was), imagining the female symbol of France as a woman appearing during the French Revolution and an allegory of what should France look like. As Wikipedia tells us, Marianne is a national symbol of the French Republic, an allegory of liberty and reason, and a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. Marianne is displayed in many places in France and holds a place of honor in town halls and law courts. She symbolizes the Triumph of the Republic, a bronze sculpture overlooking the Place de la Nation in Paris. Her profile stands out on the official government logo of the country, is engraved on French euro coins and appears on French postage stamps; it also was featured on the former franc currency. Marianne is one of the most prominent symbols of the French Republic, and is officially used on most government documents. Marianne is a significant republican symbol, as opposed to monarchy, and an icon of freedom and democracy against all forms of dictatorship. Other national symbols of France include the tricolor flag, the national motto Liberté, égalité, Fraternité, the national anthem La Marseillaise, as well as the coat of arms and the official Great Seal of France.

I would like to wish you all
A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR
I am looking forward to the year to come, 2015.

SOME REQUESTS FOR TITRE DE SÉJOUR REQUIRE SOME KNOWLEDGE OF FRENCH/FRANCE!
It is well known that when a foreigner requests French nationality, he or she must prove complete integration and therefore demonstrate an excellent level of French and a good knowledge of what is happening or has happened in France. But that is not the only case where such knowledge is required. The other, which is almost as well known, is when requesting the carte de résident, which lasts for ten years. Since the issuance of the circulaire de régularisation des sans-papiers by Manuel Valls, at that time the Minister of Interior, on November 28th 2012, some fluency in French has been required to obtain this status, and it is measured according to the length of time lived in France. Recently in the waiting room at the Nanterre prefecture, I witnessed French helpers acting like teachers, quizzing applicants on the names of the members of the current French government, the French motto, the names of the various symbols of the French republic, and so on. It felt more like waiting for an oral exam in high school than an administrative procedure. I can testify that the civil servants are not really testing a level of French conversation but knowledge of French politics in the large meaning of the word. My advice to applicants: read a newspaper every day and start having those conversations about politics that French people love so much!

FYI, the questions and their answers:
The motto of France: Liberté, égalité, fraternité
The Minister of Interior’s name: Mr. Cazeneuve
The name of the female symbol of France: Marianne

AUTO-ENTREPRENEUR: THE SEQUEL!
April 2011
AUTO-ENTREPRENEUR: STATUS IN LANGUAGE SCHOOLS
A reader sent me a very long message reporting on what has been happening in many language schools now that self-employed status has been made much simpler. To make the long story shorter, I have boiled down and paraphrased much of my reader’s report.

-I have seen all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff going on in relation to business English or ELT [English language teaching] and the status of « self-employed » [auto-entrepreneur]. Maybe some of your readers will not be surprised to hear that URSSAF at the national level has heeded certain calls, since it is now enforcing new, tougher guidelines and has introduced a stronger requirement (tougher obligation on reporting, etc.). So regarding the point you make in your March column, about determining who is really self-employed, I agree that there is a lot to be said on this matter. For my two cents, I will describe what I have seen (of course, I am only one person so it is difficult to draw any valid generalizations). But it looks obvious to me that it is going to become a free-for-all. Here are some of my observations.

-The March issue of your column states: « What happens to some of my clients is that someone, most often an URSSAF inspector, audits the individual and the company to find out if the relationship is truly an equal one and therefore the self-employed status is valid, or if the autoentrepreneur is actually a subordinate and therefore should be an employee. »

-Actually, I have worked as an employee (2007/2008) in a training center. What could be considered the lines of subordination were relatively easy to identify, i.e., a formal contract, guaranteeing a number of hours, with a convention collective underlining the contract, a manager (pedagogical), a totally NON-transparent system for allocating the clients or determining which teacher went with whom, etc.

-And then you have a situation today which is more akin to what you and I would consider to be « free market » goings on:
-I have received emails from training centers with numéro de formateur or registered by the DRTEFP [direction régionale du travail, de l’emploi et de la formation professionnelle regional department of labor, jobs and continuing education] that have acted under what I would consider false pretenses. In other words, send a résumé (but really this is just camouflage for putting you automatically on their external list and mailing me), with no consent on my part, and that constitutes an offer. This goes as far as saying nous prêtons les supports

-Usually on the « independent » job boards you begin to see the same pattern and the same « usual suspects » who will never give an indication of what the « hourly price » is for the « course » and of course there is never any indication of what line of subordination exists.

-Another laissez-faire attitude is that NO one compels an individual, whether self-employed or not, to respond to any of these adverts. What can one say about all this? The person who runs this site is VERY EXPLICIT about what he wishes to achieve on the site and that the individuals who register or « announce » MUST not do it under a corporate status, etc.

-So, there is everything and anything out there. Quite how an URSSAF inspector is expected to keep a watchful eye on all of this is completely beyond me, since you would need a planning/coordination apparatus that would dwarf anything that was put in place by the USSR!

FALSE INFORMATION ON A REPUTABLE WEBSITE REGARDING STUDENT IMMIGRATION AND AUTO-ENTREPRENEUR: STATUS
More recently, here is what another reader sent me:
-I read your November newsletter with great interest and I think I know where you might have gotten your inspiration for this month’s topic! I wanted to share with you the website where I originally got the idea that I could teach English as an auto-entrepreneur while in France on a student visa.

-Here is a extract from this website: You can work as a freelancer as well as be on a contract in France. Nowadays some language schools prefer their teachers to be registered as freelancers « auto-entrepreneurs » in French. We show you how to set up as a freelance English teacher, get plenty of freelance work and do well at interviews. Think about getting a website and business cards done (both can be virtually free these days).

– “Remember”  if you are American or do not have an EU passport, you will need an official « student » visa to be able to teach in France legally. Once you have one you can teach here for up to a year and are treated just like a EU citizen. To get this visa you need to follow a French course at an official organization. We can help you arrange your French course in Toulouse with our friends the Alliance Francaise en.alliance-toulouse.org/ just mention this on your application form or contact them and ask for M All this should be done several months in advance while you are still in your home country.

-After my meeting with you this week, I realize how misleading their website is and that the important phrase I overlooked was you can teach for up to one year. There is no mention on their website on how to renew or extend your student visa!

Not all such sites give bad information. One an agency placing teachers has this to say regarding visas on its website:
For non-European candidates, a visa allowing you to work in France is needed. We are not sponsoring Working Visas The jobs we have being only part time positions, unfortunately, it is impossible for us to sponsor your requests to obtain a working visa.
Which types of visa allow me to work with Speaking-agency? Several types of visa allow you to work with us. Here is a list of the main ones:
– student visa
– working holiday visa
– vie privée et familiale visa
– resident card
www.speaking-agency.com/recruitment/work-program-in-paris/french-courses

I would have preferred a more accurate description but considering the overall situation, I am very happy to read this.

OFFICE TO CLOSE FOR CHRISTMAS
The office will close for a week for Christmas starting on Friday, December 19th, and reopen on Monday, December 29th. 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.

Best regards,

QUESTION

SEVERAL GROUNDS FOR OBTAINING A CARTE DE SÉJOUR MENTION VIE PRIVÉE ET FAMILIALE

I would like to react to the following statement in your November issue:
You now have a family in France, with a spouse and a child. But you three have not been a family long enough to qualify for the carte de séjour mention vie privée et familiale. Ideally you should be married more than five years to qualify for this status. So this is not a viable solution right now. How is this possible? I have been told that I, as an American PACSed to a French citizen, can qualify for the carte de séjour mention vie privée et familiale after showing proof I have lived with him under the same roof and shared the same bills after only one year. I am quite surprised, still, that they cannot qualify for something like this since they have a child born on French territory. Is your reasoning because they are non-EU citizens?

QUESTION

IS IT EASIER NOW TO OBTAIN FRENCH NATIONALITY?

We know that under the previous French administration, the conservatives did all they could to tighten up on immigration and to make it more difficult to get French citizenship, including adding things like a written French literacy test even though I believe it was illegal to do so. Have things loosened up under the current administration, and is it a little less difficult to get French citizenship?
I am in the middle of my second ten-year residency card in France and thinking about finally applying for citizenship. Will the length of time I have lived as a resident speak in my favor in this process? What about financial status? I know that you have to provide proof that your taxes are paid up, but do the authorities do anything like running a credit check to see what your financial status is before granting citizenship? Are they less likely to grant citizenship if your income has not been very high? If you are nearing retirement age, when do you become eligible for a French pension?