From Wikipedia
“We Are the Champions” is a song by the British rock band Queen, first released on their 1977 album World. Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury.

The World Cup, Trevor Noah and French nationality
If something could not be missed this summer in France, it was the French men’s soccer team winning the world championship in Russia. I am not much of a sports fan, but there are some events that are worth following, as their impact is much bigger than just winning a game.

Twenty years ago, the French national team won the same championship. Even in 1998, almost everybody spoke positively of the racial diversity of the national team, which in those days looked much the same as it does now.In 1998, hardly anyone dared to criticize this diversity. They were French, and they had won. The celebrations were peaceful, with very isolated exceptions.This summer it was a very different atmosphere. There was looting in the streets of Paris and fighting with police.Interestingly, a controversy arose in the USA when late-night comedian Trevor Noah expressed joy that “Africa” had won the tournament. Noah is from South Africa, where for decades soccer was the favorite sport of black people while whites preferred rugby, especially during apartheid. Not only is soccer South Africa’s most popular sport, but most members of the national team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, have been black since the early 20th century. Black South Africans would attend rugby games just to support the opposing team as a way of showing their opposition to apartheid. By the way, “Bafana Bafana,” from the plural of the Zulu word for “boy,” means “Go, boys! Go, boys!”

Noah later got a letter from the French ambassador to the USA, scolding him for his statement on the grounds that the players were born in France. It would have been more accurate to identify the only clear error Noah made in his presentation.

Stating that the players do not look as though they have some Gallic ancestry is wrong, as the French population is not in fact descended from the Gauls, the Celtic peoples who fought Caesar.

This error has been made for centuries in French textbooks so it is difficult to criticize Noah for perpetuating it. Every French person has heard at least once,“Nos ancêtres les gaulois”!

After Julius Caesar defeated a confederation of Gallic tribes in the Battle of Alesia, Roman influence grew in Gaul. The Romans ended up having a tiny role in Brittany – which may be the only (loosely) historical fact in the Asterix comic books! Then Germanic tribes conquered all Western Europe, defeating the Roman Empire in 476, and each tribe settled where it chose. In France, two Germanic groups grew and battled for superiority: the Francs and the Burgundians (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundians ) under whom the remainder of the Gallic nation was destroyed. Not until 1477 did King Louis XI, called “Louis the Prudent,” defeat the Duke of Burgundy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_the_Bold.

The kingdom of Brittany, whose capital was Nantes, existed from 849 to 1532, when Queen Anne de Bretagne married the king of France. Brittany was independent for so long that today it is the only place in France where one still finds Gallic people, descended from the Celts. There the road signs are written in two languages: French and Breton, a Celtic language.

But Noah is right in saying that when members of the far-right wing made similar statements, they were using the players’ origins against them. So I understand and agree with the content of the ambassador’s letter, from a French point of view. Made in France, such statements are racist. But given what I know of Trevor Noah, South Africa and soccer there, I cannot find an ounce of racism in his statement.

I have always known that the French soccer team is made up of first and second-generation immigrants, as far back as one can go, and I got interested in digging up some historical facts.

For example, during the 1958 World Cup competition in Sweden, one of the French players was Just Fontaine. Born in Marrakech to a French father and a Spanish mother, he was the best player of that tournament, surpassing the number of goals made by Pelé, the Brazilian icon. The captain of the team was Raymond Kopa, born in Poland. In those days, if someone were to have made the same kind of remark as Noah, they would say the French team was mostly East European.

Then, for many years, the French soccer team no longer made it to the soccer finals until the 1976 European Cup, when the Saint-Étienne team lost to Munich. Saint-Étienne, led by brothers Hervé and Patrick Revelli, second-generation Italian immigrants, was made up of French players with origins mainly from Italy and Eastern Europe, as well as from Spain, to a lesser degree.

Michel François Platini is regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time. He won the Ballon d’Or three times, in 1983, 1984 and 1985. He is also a second-generation Italian. Then there was the 1998 team, which won the World Cup – led by Zinedine Zidane, born in Marseille to Algerian Kabyle parents.

As I continue to look at French history, I realize that the first wave of immigrants in modern times came from Poland, starting in the late 19th century. By the time it flattened out in 1931, some 500,000 people had immigrated to France. About 30 years later, French players of Polish origin were represented on the French soccer team.

Another wave occurred right after WWII: between 1945 and 1970, 1.8 million Italians came to France. It was the third wave of Italian immigration and the biggest up to then. About 30 years after the beginning of this wave, they were represented in French soccer.

Another massive wave started when Algerian independence was declared in 1962. By the time it ended in 1982, the Algerian population of France had grown from 350,000 to 800,000. About 30 years after this wave began, players of Algerian origin were represented in French soccer, as they still are today.

Does it really matter? Yes and no. Clearly, from its creation by the German tribes called the Franks, France has been a country made by continuous waves of immigration, unlike most other European countries, which historically saw their population emigrating, mostly to the USA.

Soccer in France is played mostly by low-income people, and is especially popular in cities dependent on heavy industry. Thus it makes sense that it takes about 30 years to bring these populations to the top of the game.

The chanting heard the night of France’s World Cup win, continuing very late into the night, just reminded me that France stands by its tradition of welcoming immigrants, as it was created by immigrants themselves. For any country, welcoming immigrants is never an easy thing. Immigration brings out the best as well as the worst in people.

THE IRS AND HOLDING AN AMERICAN PASSPORT
A new policy authorizes the US Internal Revenue Service to block the issuance or renewal of an American passport to American citizens who are in arrears or have pending tax issues. If you owe the IRS more than $51,000 in taxes, it may not be possible to get a new passport or renew an existing one. Your passport might even be taken away.

The media has mainly reported that the IRS says some 362,000 Americans could fall into this category by the end of this calendar year. This situation could represent a significant limitation on travel freedom.

The regulation is very likely to be extended to American citizens living outside the USA who have not met their IRS obligations. Many Americans citizens living in France have never filed annual declarations, or stopped doing so. A plausible scenario is that, if such people visit the USA, they will not allowed to leave if they appeared on the authorities’ radar when they entered the country and this information was passed on to the IRS to see if they have met their fiscal obligations.

A RECENT NATURALIZATION PROCEDURE 
The following account (lightly edited for clarity) was sent by one of my clients who recently obtained French citizenship. We are regularly told now that this procedure takes less than a year. I am sure the prefecture is working on it, but clearly it is not happening yet. This one took two years, almost to the day:

“I sent my file on July 11, 2016. My appointment occurred at the prefecture on December 7, 2017. The file then was sent to Rezé, where the registrar of l’état civil des non residents is located, during the month of February. My name was published in the Journal Officiel on July 8, 2018. So, the whole process was almost two years. I have requested my birth certificate and am waiting for that now.

“According to other cases and statistics I have seen, this timeline is currently average for Paris for naturalization by decree (other departments are quicker; it seems Paris is the slowest). Most people are having to wait at least a year to get an appointment in Paris, and sometimes closer to 18 months.

“My understanding was that the ‘official’ one-year (max. 18-month) timeline for a decision starts only from the time of the interview. In fact, the agent told me that day to expect to wait up to a year for a decision (in the end it was only seven months). Perhaps the discrepancy is in how the time is calculated.”

I confirm what this client says. I will keep you posted if I see a significant increase or decrease in how long it takes to complete the process. The truth of the matter is that everybody knows the concept of the procedure taking one year refers to the time between the file reaching the prefecture and the official decision being published in the Journal Officiel.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
At first social media was seen as fun. The idea was to share pictures and emotions, keeping people informed. Social media, especially Facebook, is now criticized by some for allowing unacceptable messages, while others find this criticism to constitute censorship. I am staying away from this debate, as France has rather strict laws limiting what people can say regarding specific topics, especially for publication. France and the USA have very different views on the definition of freedom of speech.

Recent French Supreme Court decisions shed some light regarding its consequence on social media and hence the limits of the individual right of freedom of speech on Facebook. The cases involved an employer who fired an employee for negative posts that damaged the employer’s reputation. In most cases, this is considered a valid reason to fire an employee, as there is a loyalty obligation as well as an obligation to work for the interest of the employer. The key question is whether the message can be considered slander or objective criticism.

https://abonnes.lemonde.fr/emploi/article/2018/07/25/critiquer-son-employeur-sur-internet-mieux-vaut-y-reflechir-a-deux-fois_5335564_1698637.html

RETENUE À LA SOURCE – INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING STARTS ON JANUARY 1st 2019
I first mentioned that this would happen in my July-August 2015 column. The tax office has been communicating by email and post about this enormous reform, and now people are receiving information about exactly how it will be done. The bottom line is that the employee will have the money withheld by the employer; for the self-employed, the tax office will take a set amount from the bank account linked to the income declaration.

Many in the French media continue to state that the system is not ready yet and could lead to some serious problems. The one segment of the population that will escape this new policy is people working for private individuals, who are the cleaning ladies, the nannies, and the tutors among many others.

The French administration has come with several sophisticated explanations for this exception, but they are not at all convincing. It is pretty obvious what happened. The French pay slip is so complex that it is nearly impossible for anyone but a French CPA to issue a valid one. Therefore, over 20 years ago, on December 1st 1994, le chèque emploi service universel was created so that URSSAF, a division of the French administration, would issue those pay slips. URSSAF is very qualified to calculate social charges, as it collects them from businesses. I am sure the people who planned the new policy totally forgot this type of situation. Only about 250,000 people nationwide fall into this category, which does not match either of the two situations mentioned above.

The people affected are employees, but the employer is not issuing the pay slips; the tax office could take the money from the employees’ bank account but they are not self-employed, even though some of them have a lot of employers. I have known some cleaning ladies who have ten employers at once.

But URSSAF has not had the time to add this new function to the service it already offers. It really requires redesigning the calculation of the bill sent to the employer.

Many of the employees affected have very low wages and therefore do not pay income tax. This may be another reason the French administration did not push as hard as for the other categories: there will be very little money to collect.

https://abonnes.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/07/05/le-prelevement-a-la-source-decale-d-un-an-pour-les-salaries-des-particuliers-annonce-darmanin_5326048_823448.html

TAX OWED ON 2017 INCOME IS DUE SEPTEMBER 15th 
This is the last year in French history that people pay their income tax in the traditional three installments on February 15th, May 15th and September 15th. The new system will be implemented on January 1st 2019, as mentioned above. There is a special office in the Parisian suburb of Créteil for residents of Paris. It used to be that the two divisions of the French tax administration involved in the reform had different locations. Today they share the same buildings, but still function as separate entities. Nevertheless, the September 15th deadline will be retained so as to wrap up any discrepancies between what was paid and what is owed.

Best regards,

QUESTION

BUYING AN APARTMENT WHILE RENTING IT

I have been renting a furnished apartment for over a decade. A few days ago, my landlord sent a real estate agent to my place to take pictures, and a surveyor for all kinds of testing. Later I learned that the landlord has signed an exclusive sale mandate and plans to have me move out.
I am really mad because for several years I have told him I would like to buy the place. I thought I had the right of first refusal before he could give me notice. Also, I thought he could not do this in the middle of the lease but needs to wait until the anniversary date. I reminded him that the lease states primary residence and as such he should have dealt with me first. He answered that his hands were tied and I should make my offer to the real estate agent.
I feel bullied and cheated. Do I have any recourse?

QUESTION

SPOUSES OF DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES IMMIGRATING TO 

I am American and my wife is Filipina. After a couple of years of marriage and just a few months living together in the USA, she has been denied residence status for technical reasons. We are continuing the legal battle to extend the time before deportation, without much hope of success. So, she will be forced to leave as early as February 2019. We might make it to May 2019 at best. We have been through so much, emotionally, being rejected by my home country, coming to terms with leaving my grown children and the beautiful financial situation I have worked my life to attain. I am proud to run a successful business. Our only choice appears to be to commit, financially and emotionally, to a new life in France. Having our visa requests rejected would be a catastrophe. In the hope of success, we have chosen either Dordogne or Occitanie to be our new home.
Most immediately, we need to know if she has the right to apply for her French long-term visa in our French consulate in the USA or if she will need to return to the Philippines to apply. What are our chances of success?

Let’s assume that she is successful in obtaining her long-term visa at either location. I would then need help in securing permanent residency for both of us. This means I need to work to sustain our stay in France. I believe that living in France is our best choice and maybe the only one, considering her status. I have nightmares thinking about what can happen if our visa requests are rejected. I hope and pray for a yes, against all odds, considering what we went through. Please help us.

From Wikipedia:
The Gospel Train (Get on Board)” is a traditional African-American spiritual first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A standard gospel song, it is found in the hymnals of many Protestant denominations and has been recorded by numerous artists.

The original meaning of the word “gospel” is “good news.” The title may be deceiving, since this month once again I do not have much good news to offer. But I enjoyed drafting the section about the SNCF and the trains, and thought it would be nice to refer to it.

HAD TO BUY A NEW COMPUTER URGENTLY IN EARLY APRIL
In early April, my computer was stolen. This disorganized my work a lot more than I would have thought.

After trying for a week to use my son’s computer and my backup, I found that several programs were not compatible. After a week I gave up and bought a new one with a French keyboard, which I was not used to.

Now I am starting to catch up with the work that accumulated during the two weeks where I could not be efficient on the computer. I tried my best and prioritized as much as I could. If I missed anything, just send an email again and I will get to it.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: TIME TO DECLARE IS NOW
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would like to remind everybody that the paper version of the 2017 income declaration must be filed in France by Wednesday, May 17th and the second partial income tax payment (deuxième tiers) is to be paid by May 15th (midnight, in both cases). The forms are already available at www.impots.gouv.fr. It is possible to file your declaration on this website, provided it is not your first time. To do so, you need your tax ID number and some access codes

• .Note that if you file online, the deadline is later. The schedule depends on your postal code:
• départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on May 22nd
• départements 20 to 49 by May 29 th
• départements 50 or higher by June 5th

An important reminder: if you are a French fiscal resident (i.e. if you hold a carte de séjour or an immigration visa validated with an OFII stamp, and comply with the requirements), you must declare your worldwide income to the French authorities even if you have no income in France and do not have the right to work in France. There is no penalty for neglecting to file, but not meeting this obligation is illegal and can have consequences.

You are a French fiscal resident if you:

• 1. Staying in France for 183 days in a calendar year, whether you have legal immigration status or not.
• 2. Having immediate family members who reside in France (a spouse and/or children).
• 3. Having a French employer.
• 4. Running a French business, even something like tutoring schoolchildren in English.

Current government-sponsored advertising campaigns call the paper form a thing of the past and say filing on paper is obsolete. For now, declaring electronically gives you an extension of a few weeks.

RETENUE À LA SOURCE – INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING STARTS ON JANUARY 1st 2019
I first mentioned that this would happen in my July-August 2015 column. Now the tax office is communicating by email and letters in the mail informing everybody that this enormous reform to the taxation method is in place and people need to get ready for it.

France is one of the last Western countries where income tax is paid by the individual directly and not withheld by the employer. There are many cultural and historical reasons why the French people have been reluctant to change this set-up, but all of them combined are not enough to explain why it has not yet been done.

Under the new system, everybody, even the self-employed, will make monthly payments.

There is only one technical reason that withholding tax would be very difficult to set up. It is called the quotient familial. I believe France is the only country that taxes the family as a group rather than individuals. This means the amount of tax you owe changes if:

• – You get married,
• – You get divorced,
• – You have a child,
• – The child leaves the home,
• – A family member dies, and/or
• – A family member becomes disabled.

Such events occur frequently enough in the course of a lifetime that they could significantly change the amount withheld. A withholding system works best if there is just a small discrepancy at the end of the year. This is why the French system prefers to have taxes paid in three installments. The first two, in February and in May, are calculated on the amount owed the year before, and the last one on the amount of taxes owed for the year.

Neither employers nor employees are very happy with the coming reform. Employers do not want an extra task to complicate the French pay slip even more. Employees dislike the fact that employers will know much more about their private lives: Employees will have to tell employers right away if any of the above-mentioned changes takes place, and employers will have to inform the tax office to calculate the new amount owed. Given the level of distrust French employees have toward employers, this could create major difficulties.

For self-employed people, the tax office relies on the previous year’s income and the amount of taxes owed to determine how much money will be taken out monthly. The same reasons for a radical change in the amount of taxes owed also apply here. Presumably the person in this situation can tell the tax office directly to modify the calculation accordingly. Knowing how such withholding is done today – it is set in stone for the entire calendar year – I am really not sure this has been changed to accommodate the above situations.

PACS DISSOLUTION: THE LACK OF A COURT DECISION CAN COMPLICATE MATTERS
A faithful reader who is a marriage counselor has sent me a comment worth reflecting on.

“Thanks for your latest column which, as usual, is full of useful information and interesting reflections. On the subject of the PACS, it might be useful to point out that a PACS can be unilaterally abrogated at the request of one of the partners. This happened recently to one of the women in my support group. A few days later the man showed up at the couple’s flat late at night with the police and literally threw the woman out in the street with her belongings!”
My reaction: There must be a lot more to the story, given how primary domicile is protected in France. But this illustrates one of the downsides of the PACS. Since there is no judge or notaire involved in the dissolution, the partners are left to determine the split of assets and debts on their own, as well as finding a way to agree on practical matters so each partner can leave the relationship with what is theirs.

It is rarely the case that the agreement is amicable, given how often relationships end in acrimony. This is a good opportunity to remind you once again that a PACS can indeed be unilaterally abrogated, and the consequences can be terrible. In such cases, filing in court is often the best thing to do, particularly if one partner is being bullied as described above and may have trouble securing their rights.

AN AMERICAN GOT FINED LEAVING FRANCE FOR OVERSTAYING THE 90-DAY PERIOD
It is clear that the French police at airports are getting stricter about overstaying. I learned from one of my clients that an American citizen was fined about 100€ for overstaying the 90-day Schengen limit. As far as I know, this person has actually been living in France without any immigration status for a very long time and has regularly overstayed in the past, always by a few days or a few weeks.

Therefore, to me this is a signal that the French police are now looking at what is inside the passport and not just the first page. While other feedback I am getting indicates there are still many going through without any consequences, the trend is clear. There will come a day when overstaying will mean paying a fine.

FRANCE IS FACING MORE AND MORE STRIKES
At the time of writing, the national train company SNCF, university students and Air France are on strike. I do not intend to discuss or even review the new government policies against which people are striking.

Foreigners are generally amazed at how and why French people go on strike. In many countries, labor and management negotiate, with a deadline. If an agreement is not found by then, the confrontation leaves the negotiating table and goes into the streets, with demonstrations, picketing and so on. It becomes an arm-twisting match.

In France, on the other hand, strikes and street demonstrations occur before negotiations really start, since France has never had a culture that promotes negotiation and compromise as a way to obtain negotiated agreements. The public and private sectors both are then crippled, and for the same reason. It is almost as if each party is presenting its position as definitive, with no room for negotiation. Strikes then become a way to determine who wins. In the end, there is little negotiation. Either the unions are unable to mobilize enough people and there is a lack of popular support, so the reform goes into effect pretty much as is. Or the strike is strong, picking up momentum and public support, in which case the government is left with little option but damage control. The reform is stopped, and the status quo – which is not good most of the time – is maintained.

Given the nature and extent of President Macron’s reforms, it was clear that no matter how much of a wizard he is in public relation and negotiations, there would be strikes and strong opposition. Personally, I was surprised the strikes did not start much sooner, and they are a lot less severe than I expected. The credit goes to President Macron, who has done quite well so far.

Clearly the SNCF needs to be drastically reorganized, as the overall quality of service is poor, the trains are often not on time, the comfort in the trains (aside from the TGV) is not great, and the suburban trains and infrastructure are in bad shape; by the way the Parisian suburban train system has already started its makeover. There is a need to shift the focus away from the TGV so the rest of the system can deliver decent service.

There is fierce debate about the special status the SNCF employees have, especially the ones operating the trains. The cheminots – the name today refers by extension to all the people working at the SNCF – have an honored history:

From Wikipedia:
The Battle of the Rails (French: La Bataille du rail) is a 1946 war movie directed by René Clément which depicts the efforts by French railway workers to sabotage German troop transport trains.

During the war, members of the CGT union, many of them also members of the Communist party, launched their own battle against the Germans, making it more and more difficult for the Wehrmacht to move troops, artillery and other weapons. This, among many other things, had a measurable impact on the success of D-Day, for example. At the end of the war, the surviving leaders were decorated as exceptional warriors. It is interesting that even today this has an echo in the general population, much more than one would expect some 75 years later.

This overly emotional discussion of whether rail workers deserve their so-called perks distracts from a more interesting issue, which I believe should be the main one. Trains today are powered by electricity and there are railroad tracks everywhere in France. Is it time to favor rail over road, to fight global warming? It could be a good idea to promote and heavily invest in train transport both for shipping and travel as a way to fight fossil fuel usage. Then the government could emphasize the fact that the men and women of the SNCF take extra pride in the work they do for historical reasons. At first there should be no discussion about their contracts. Developing and improving the quality of the services the SNCF offer will reassure these workers about the future of their jobs. Then modifications in their status, perhaps offering less job security and discontinuing benefits inherited from the past, would not alarm them when there is a plan lasting a decade or more designed to make the SNCF become more competitive in transporting both goods and people.

For those who think this is pure utopia, check out how much the Paris metro is being renovated, as well as the Parisian suburban trains and infrastructure. There is a huge amount of work to be done before people see a measurable result. Just the number of stations fully closed for months for a complete makeover the last ten years, gives a pretty accurate indication of the work’s scope.

You may think I am comfortable and not affected by this, but I recently waited over an hour in the cold for a train at a station in Versailles. This is sometime inconvenient to me, as it is to so many others almost everyday.

Best regards,

QUESTION

NAME CHANGE AND THE FRENCH ADMINISTRATION

I am an American citizen born in Israel and I moved to France about two years ago. Due to my age and medical condition, I registered with my local CPAM. I have had problem after problem with them. Nothing was good enough for them to register me. Now that I have the temporary number that means I am covered, they have refused my birth certificate and the documents proving my name change. My first name, chosen by my parents, was that of my paternal grandfather. It was a quite an oddity (I was never called by it), and we moved to the USA when I was young, where everyone called me Billy. So I applied for an official name change, which was fine for many years. Much later in life, it became evident that it would be a good thing to change again. I then chose David.
The prefecture reluctantly accepted all the paperwork, officially translated, of all this and I now have my carte de séjour.
CPAM refuses the same documentation even though everything is explained and clearly spelled out. They now want an attestation de concordance. What is that? Am I being discriminated against? What can I do to be certain that this is truly the last document they need? Frankly, I do not trust them anymore. How can I report this anti-Semitic discrimination?

QUESTION

NATURALIZATION AND NON-COMPLIANCE WITH FRENCH INCOME TAX FOR STARTING A BUSINESS IN FRANCE?

I came to France as an American holding a long stay visa. After a few years I managed by myself to become self-employed and got the related carte de séjour and I was very proud of myself. This year I got the carte de résident, which lasts ten years. So I decided that I would ask for French nationality and went to see a lawyer, who told me that I did not qualify because I was cheating on my taxes. I left the firm outraged at such an unfair accusation.
Every year I fill out the form sent by RSI, and I pay on time all the tax bills I receive from URSSAF, RAM, and CIPAV. I have a perfect record for that. Once a year I send my #1040 to the IRS. The lawyer mentioned the French income tax I was not paying. What was he talking about? As you can see, I have always paid my taxes on time!

First of all, I would like to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous 2016!
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 word “pilgrims” can be seen as an ancient way to say “refugees.” Everyone seems to agree that one is very different from the other. Today’s news only talks about refugees and I have not heard anyone talking about pilgrims. The difference is imprinted in our brains. When we hear “pilgrims” we have a hard time not thinking about “the Mayflower” and her sister ships reaching the coasts of what is today the USA.

“I read the dictionary and I can see the difference, yet I am still puzzled by the fact that some centuries ago people seeking refuge on the American continent were called pilgrims but from the mid-19th century on, especially in the 20th century, everybody became refugees, fleeing hunger in Ireland, poverty, religious persecution in Russia, and so on.

When I see Iraqi and Syrian Christians fleeing for their lives because they are Christians, does this make them pilgrims? I am not sure. The bottom line is that the word “pilgrim” has a lot of positive connotations and the word “refugee” a lot of bad ones. In most Western countries today, the population has an adverse reaction to an influx of refugees.

A NEW YEAR FOR EVERYBODY, INCLUDING REFUGEES
The Christmas and New Year’s holidays are the moment when most people reflect on the past year and what they aspire for in the new year that is about to start. At that moment, the world can be divided between those who make New-Year’s resolutions and those who do not. We know what happens to most of those resolutions, whether in the USA, in France, or elsewhere in the world, at least in countries where people have some control over their own lives. It would almost take a philosophical discussion to define the concept of “some control over one’s own life.” I believe we are less in control over our lives than we think. The refugees who arrive in the Western world have virtually no control over their lives, and that lasts for quite a while. The most basic necessities of life – where to sleep and what to eat – are not under their control. Some of them are lucky enough to receive a lot of help from the government of the host country, but way too many arrive and find nothing is ready for them. They must rely on help from NGOs, longer-term refugees, and the neighbors.

This is a very complex political issue and I believe that it can only be properly addressed at the international level. In the meantime, in many European countries, including France, refugees congregate under bridges or in squares, waiting, and I am not sure that they truly know what they are waiting for.

I find it ironic that France passed a law on July 29th 2015 reorganizing refugee-asylum procedures, supposedly shortening their length from an average of two years to about nine months. On November 2nd, ten days after the last provisions related to this law were issued, a new wave of refugees was settling in the Paris region, clogging the system. The nine-month goal now looks totally unrealistic, and processing is likely to take several years again, as I do not see the flow of refugees to the Western world stopping any time soon. One of a few refugees I help just received a letter stating that the French refugee office, OFPRA, is not in a position to schedule the initial meeting within six months as the new law provides. The request was submitted in late June and the letter was sent in late December. It did not say when the meeting might be scheduled. Here, too, the refugee has no control over what is going on, and sometimes has to wait years before the request is reviewed and the decision is definitive.

My experience is that most refugees rebound in one way or another after several months, maybe a year, and start to create a new life where they are. They can secure lodging and food, most of them find work, and they learn which organizations can really help and how.

One can only hope that this year of 2016, which has just started, will bring success, happiness and safety to the vast majority of people.

COMMENT FROM A READER
“Congratulations on the PayPal account. I’m reaching a point where I won’t do business with someone who doesn’t have one. Just using it saves me $40 each time I make a transfer.”

MY RESPONSE
I try to make sure that I keep all possible methods of payment available for a private practice. This comment illustrates quite well the evolution in financial arrangements and the need for the banking industry to come up with new solutions for the general public, whether in France, the USA or elsewhere.

UPDATE ON AIRLINES’ DUTY TO CHECK IMMIGRATION STATUS
In the previous issue (December-January) there was a Q/A on this topic and I asked the reader to let me know the outcome. It went much better than I thought, although I was right to state that it would not be easy to persuade the airline of the validity of the claim.

I find it very interesting that it was the insurance policy attached to the use of the credit card that did the trick. I believe that if that insurance company had not addressed the claim, it would have gone nowhere. This is good to know; the threat of a liability lawsuit makes American business react quickly when the threat is credible and the opponent a major corporation. So let’s continue to use our credit cards, with moderation and according to our means!

THE READER’S UPDATE
On my return to Paris, not being able to find a telephone number on their website, I sent an e-mail to the low cost airline complaining about being forced to buy a return ticket to the US. I received an automatic response saying that they would get back to me in 5 or 6 weeks.

I then telephoned the Bank of America MasterCard dispute department. The person I spoke with told me that they would investigate the charge and not to pay the airline’s charge on my bill until further notice. While I was still on the line, the agent called the airline on another line. She expressed surprise that the telephone number that she had for the airline was for a top-level executive. This person was unavailable to take the call but the agent promised to keep trying. She said that MasterCard would get back to me with their decision by letter, which I eventually received.

In the meantime, after I found out from you that my identity card was indeed still valid, I called back the MasterCard dispute office and added that information to my file. I also sent another e-mail to the airline stating the same information.

After that e-mail or perhaps after hearing from the MasterCard folks, the airline wrote back to me much earlier than the 5 or 6 weeks announced in their original response. They offered me a refund if I would send them my bank information.

I called MasterCard back to tell them that the airline had offered me a refund. They said that the file had already been closed and that the charge had been removed from my account.

WELL-INSULATED HOMES SELL FOR MORE
For a long time, people buying real estate did not pay much attention to how well insulated the house or apartment was. In recent years, however, there has been a rather dramatic change. People buying real estate in France are interested in how much it costs to heat the place; poor insulation makes this a lot more expensive at a time when electricity, heating oil and gas have undergone significant price increases. Another factor is increased awareness that saving energy is good for environmental reasons and should be promoted in all possible ways.

It took some time to register the change; the association DINAMIC, managed by the Conseil supérieur du notariat and the Chambre des notaires de Paris, carefully studied real estate transactions in France during 2014, comparing properties of similar types and checking their ratings regarding insulation.

Since 1996, France has passed laws requiring that buyers have reliable information and do not rely solely on real estate agents, who in those days had a reputation for lying about pretty much every possible topic related to properties. The Carrez law of December 18th 1996 was the first: it was passed to stop real estate agents from systematically lying about the size of houses and apartments. Laws on other topics soon followed. Today, the number of certified, independent testing firms and the scope of the laws put buyers in France on the same footing as those in the USA, where evaluations are done by surveyors, though there are some differences in what is tested.

• Presence of lead in the apartment and building (diagnostic plomb)
  The test concerns water and paint. Even though many existing pipes are made of lead, this kind of pollution is exceedingly rare. Lead paint has been banned for about 40 years, yet it is very common to find one or more layers of such paint on the walls and ceilings of Parisian apartments. The risk of exposure to this pollution is slight unless the paint is so chipped that the old layers are accessible, in which case there is a serious danger of small children eating the paint.
• Presence of asbestos in the apartment and building (diagnostic amiante)
  Asbestos, formerly used as insulation and a fire retardant, is highly toxic when inhaled.
• Presence of termites in the apartment and building (diagnostic termites)
  The presence of termites in French cities is relatively recent and can be explained that until recently the construction of French houses used very little wood.
• Condition of the electrical system in the apartment (installation électrique)
  The electrical system is evaluated to see whether it meets the current safety standards, and its description helps in understanding its flaws, if any.
• Condition of the gas system in the apartment (installation gaz)
  Not all apartments use gas for cooking, heating or hot water. If there is a need, the system is evaluated.
• Potential risks from nature or human activity (risques naturels et technologiques)
  This is mainly about the risk of floods and earthquakes, and dangers related to nearby factories.
• Energy performance of the apartment (performance énergétique)
  This concerns the cost and energy efficiency of heating and (if any) cooling. The test mainly involves checking window and door insulation and the type of heating system installed, mainly gas or electricity in Paris.

With all these tests made mandatory within a short period, it is understandable that the impact of insulation quality on selling price was not easily identified. It was only made mandatory in 2011.Notaires say it has become a strong selling point when the property gets a good rating.

Their research is pegged to the D rating, which is average (the range goes from A, excellent, to G, terrible). The amount of variation in price depends on location, but an F or G rating can reduce the price by between 5% and 18%. For example, in Brittany, a poor rating means an average decrease of 13%.

Apartments are less affected because as part of a building they benefit from the protection of the building itself. The average decrease for poor ratings is between 2% and 14%, depending on where the apartment is. On the other hand, houses with an A or B rating sell for between 5% and 12% more.

The French are rarely thought of as being environmentally aware, but this study shows that when it comes to real estate, energy conservation has become a key selling point in a relatively short time, showing that French people can indeed alter their behavior in response to environmental concerns.

For more on this issue (in French), see: http://www.lemonde.fr/immobilier/article/2015/10/15/immobilier-les-passoires-energetiques-se-vendent-jusqu-a-18-moins-cher_4790482_1306281.html#rv00EcW63k1gwK6z.99

PARISIAN REAL ESTATE PRICES ARE GOING BACK UP
I never read French weekly magazines’ supplements on the real estate market. These publications must be very useful to a lot of people, since they are often the year’s best-seller. I do not consider myself a professional in this field, especially when it comes to prices for a given type of apartments or in a given district. On occasion, however, my clients ask me for an evaluation of the market, and I always make sure to carefully review the Parisian notaire database. Ads only indicate what sellers hope to get, which can be quite unrealistic. When French real estate agents do an evaluation, they ask what it is being used for and if it needs to be low or high, so their estimates are also seriously suspect.

The notaire, among many other responsibilities, is the professional representing the interests of the French state in real estate transactions, and it is he or she who drafts the title for the new buyer. The notaires’database, therefore, is made up of actual transactions. Usually about three to four months elapse between the seller accepting the offer and the closing of the sale, so the information available in the database may not quite reflect the current status of the market. I marginally adjust my findings depending on if it is a bull or a bear market. But the fact that the data comes from actual transactions makes me confident that I am dealing with reliable information.

In the third quarter of 2015 there were 25% more apartment sales than in the same quarter of 2014, or 9,500 more transactions. The annual increase over the last twelve months is 4.2%. The volume of sales is now at the level it was before the 2008 crisis. The average price of a square meter of real estate in Paris is now 8,000 euros, up 0.7 % from the previous quarter. The average rate for a twenty-year loan is 2.6%.

For more on this issue (in French), see: http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/immobilier/article/2015/11/26/immobilier-le-prix-des-logements-anciens-en-hausse-de-0-5-au-3e-trimestre_4817742_1306281.html
Here is the link to the real estate page of the Parisian notaires’ website, for those interested in reading more about it. www.notaires.paris-idf.fr/immobilier

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 2016, you must pay the required amount, which is one-third of the total tax you paid in 2015. Errors made by the French administration never exempt the individual from complying with the law.

My column is now in Expatriates Magazine :  http://paris.expatriatesmagazine.com
It has been a very long time since my column has been printed in an actual paper magazine (it got its start in the Paris Voice in 1994). I am very happy to announce that sections of the column can now be found in Expatriates Magazine, and I would like to thank the editor in chief, Kevin Knight, for accepting my offer. After only a couple of issues, I am getting a bigger readership.

The Q/A below on whether it is now easier to become French was first published in the magazine. I may not mention it every time this happens, but considering the time I spend answering questions on the magazine’s Facebook page, it is likely that I will continue to use questions from there.

Best regards,

QUESTION

ANOTHER READER ON AIRLINES’ DUTY TO CHECK IMMIGRATION STATUS

This is a curious problem that the holder of an expired CNI had. My understanding of the basic law is that if you are a citizen of country X you must enter and leave X with a valid travel document for X, usually the passport of X. So if your itinerary were Paris-NY-Paris you would have to leave Paris on a French passport, enter the US on a US passport, leave the US on a US passport and enter France on a French passport.
The Americans sound like they would make you buy a round-trip ticket leaving NY for Paris if you followed this rule! Unless you present both passports, but even so, for the purposes of not having to buy another ticket they will select the French one, but for the purposes of complying with the law they should select the US one. I have not been to the US for 10 years and then they did not have an exit procedure other than the airline counter — but suppose they introduce an exit police booth (or have already); then your passport won’t match your ticket information unless you have a round-trip ticket!
Maybe the US is a special case, but my wife is French-Egyptian and she passes police booths both entering and leaving both countries. But the Egyptians don’t ask for a return ticket when she returns to France. Either I’ve got the basic law wrong or the Americans are crazy. Or both.

QUESTION

IS IT EASIER TO BECOME FRENCH THAN BEFORE?

My response to your statement about it now being easier to become French: NOT TRUE! Having been married to a Frenchman for over a quarter century, lived here for 12 years, and had three cartes de séjour, a CDI with a French company and a carte de presse, not to mention having given birth to two kids for la patrimoine, I decided to apply for citizenship in June. I sent my ENORMOUS dossier by lettre recommandée, so I know it arrived at the prefecture, but I have never received one single word from the Immigration Service. Not one word.They do not answer the phone nor do they answer email. The wait can be two hours WHEN they are open, and as I work, it is very difficult to go to rue des Ursins for that exercise in futility. So, no, I do not think it is easier. What is easy is to become an American citizen, which my French husband did in a matter of minutes. All online and then a short interview with 6 questions which he answered correctly (at what age can you vote?, who is your Senator?, etc.) and bingo, he is in! No written English test, no obligatory civics classes. And he gets to choose any name he would like to be called as a brand new citizen.The French bureaucracy is WORSE than when I moved here in 1990 and I have seen absolutely no change in making ANYTHING easier.

Maybe you know something I don’t. If so, please, oh please, tell me.

QUESTION

IRENEWING A STILL VALID FRENCH CARTE NATIONALE D’IDENTITÉ

If I may make a comment regarding the renewal of the French CNI, I recently renewed my card at the Uzès mairie. I was able to do this only because my address had changed. If I had wanted to renew it simply because the date shown had expired, I was told, I would have had to write a letter to the prefecture in Nimes with my justification for requesting the renewal. Even though I reminded the clerk in Uzès that a seemingly expired card is not necessarily welcome or accepted everywhere, she stood her ground, provoking an impolite comment from me. I’m a dual US-French national too. ANYTHING easier.

Maybe you know something I don’t. If so, please, oh please, tell me.

“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?