New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) is the fourth studio album by Leonard Cohen. “There Is a War” is the first song on side two.

There is a war between the rich and poor,
A war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
And the ones who say that there isn’t. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, that’s right, get in it. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just beginning. 
Well I live here with a woman and a child, 
The situation makes me kind of nervous. 
Yes, I rise up from her arms, she says, “I guess you call this love.” 
I call it service. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, don’t be a tourist, 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, before it hurts us. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, let’s all get nervous. 
You cannot stand what I’ve become, 
You much prefer the gentleman I was before. 
I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control, 
I didn’t even know there was a war. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, don’t be embarrassed. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, you can still get married. 
There is a war between the rich and poor, 
A war between the man and the woman. 
There is a war between the left and right, 
A war between the black and white, 
A war between the odd and the even. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, pick up your tiny burden. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, let’s all get even. 
Why don’t you come on back to the war, can’t you hear me speaking?

First of all, I would like to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous 2020! 
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.

WHICH WAR, AGAINST WHOM?
From Wikipedia
The word “war” is now so misused that it rarely describes a military conflict between two or more countries. Today, in all the countries I am familiar with, almost all cases of opposing interests expressed forcefully are called wars. The fact that disagreements within the population of a country are described as a desire to annihilate the other side illustrates the extreme polarization of society. Yet several countries, including the USA and France, have actual military personnel deployed in places where they have to fight enemy forces.

I find it striking that, 46 years ago, Leonard Cohen was able to describe so vividly and accurately the situation many countries now face. Extremely violent demonstrations occurred in many countries in 2019 and some are continuing in 2020. France is one of the countries affected. Even as I write this, a massive strike is under way, involving multiple demonstrations.

Each side is expressing sadness about the situation and asking for changes, which are not coming. The division seems to grow ever wider.

People can isolate one topic, one procedure, one reform and decide who is right and who is wrong. I chose this title when it appeared there could be a military conflict between the USA and Iran. The risk then was a real war.

Many of us have New Year’s resolutions; the vast majority of people long for a more peaceful life, some security, a stable job, a secure home. At the same, many are calling the population to get involved, to become militant because what is at stake is too important to stand by and do nothing. In short this means taking a stand and fight for it.

Leonard Cohen’s song states “I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control,” and concludes, “Can’t you hear me speaking?” Sad ending, given the current lack of dialogue.

THE STRIKES AND PENSION REFORM 
The strikes over pension reform that until recently crippled French public transport started on December 5. The world got wind of the situation and followed the events closely. There are many reasons international journalists covered the story. Tourists were stranded at airports and could not get into their destination cities. The traffic jams in Paris were spectacular, lasting pretty much the entire day. Flocks of people walked for hours, traveling to their offices and meetings. Increased numbers of bicycles and scooter riders, coming out of nowhere, invaded the streets and sidewalks as their dedicated lanes became too small for the unforeseen level of traffic.

That was what could be witnessed daily and was easy to show on TV. It made for striking broadcasts and good ratings. But such obvious effects of the strike say nothing about why it happened.

As in many countries, the media in France is politically biased. Conservative news sources describe the country’s retirement system as favoring some professions so much that it is unfair to the rest of the population. Liberal sources describe the proposed reform as causing a significant loss of income for everyone and thus see the strikes as protecting the interests of the entire populace, not just certain people fighting for their own interest.

Without boring you with technical details or taking sides, explaining a few points should make it easy for you to understand the real reasons for the strikes.

Because the French administrative system tried to tailor services to the needs of the public, France ended up with 42 retirement plans. All the special ones predate WWII; the first ones were created in late 19th century. One was that of the cheminots or railway workers. This is the main one being fought so hard right now. It would be easy to narrow down this debate to the confrontation between employees of the public transport system (SNCF and RATP) and the government. But the police, lawyers, French opera companies and firefighters are also unhappy about the reform. When they expressed their opposition very strongly, the government soon backtracked.

Working at the SNCF, the national rail company, used to be very hard, and the cheminots managed to get benefits to match. Today everything is electric; the former kind of hard work, such as operating coal engines, does not exist anymore. Does that mean they have an easier job than the rest of the population? Many jobs in France are just as hard and some even worse: would it be fair to recognize that? This is where the dialogue is going nowhere. Over the years there have been several attempts to look at the physical toll jobs take on the employees so as to find a way to compensate this, especially at retirement age. Such efforts never go anywhere. The end result would be to give more to worn-out employees when they retire, without increasing the payments into their pension plan.

What is happening now is a fight between what I would call an American viewpoint and the French traditional viewpoint. The former envisions the same social security system for everybody, with employers addressing factors specific to certain jobs. The latter holds that the public system must be fair, that this means it is not equal, and that French employers cannot be trusted to protect their employees’ rights.

What I fear is that, as happened in 1995, when similar strikes were held over the very same issue, this needed reform will be abandoned altogether and buried for another decade or more. But I am just as afraid that the reform will go through the legislative process with no transparency about the issues the strikers rightfully raised. Clearly there is a need to streamline the pension system, but it is just as clear that there should be ways to address the hardship of some jobs.

To sum up: If you take away benefits without compensation, offering nothing in exchange, and the government treats people with contempt, they have every reason to be angry and chances are they will express their anger forcefully and loudly. Since December 5 this is what has been happening, and French residents, especially those in Paris, have had to deal with the consequences.

www.lemonde.fr/societe/video/2019/12/29/regimes-speciaux-pourquoi-le-systeme-de-retraite-francais-est-si-complexe_6024332_3224.html

www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/world/europe/france-pension-protests.html

THE MACRON REFORM IS BROADER THAN PEOPLE THINK
The section above addresses the origins of the strikes that have crippled France, and especially the Paris region, since early December. This section is about the other side of the streamlining of the French administration reform, which is health coverage reform.

Because of the way labor has been organized since the early 17th century under Louis XIV, the administration has created specific systems for each type of work when it comes to health coverage and retirement funds. Over the years, since long before Emmanuel Macron was elected, the health coverage and retirement systems have slowly been merged, but they always follow the division of labor between the merchants (commerçants), craftspeople (artisans) and professionals (professions libérales).

Since his election, President Macron has pushed forcefully on both the health coverage and retirement sides. The steps taken regarding health coverage had be completed by January 20, 2020, when the merger of the Sécurité Sociale des Travailleurs Indépendants (ex-RSI) with the Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie (CPAM). So now there is one organization left covering the entire French population.

I could expand a great deal about this, but I would like to focus on just a couple of issues that I believe may shed light on the bigger picture.

CPAM has always been the best in terms of coverage and efficiency. No one has complained about the merger upgrading the overall level of service, so this reform has been out of the spotlight, including in the French media. By contrast, in the pension reform, the proposed consolidated system offers lower benefits than either the special regimes or the existing generic one.

Even though the pension reform is needed and will secure the system for the generations to come, it is clear that lowering the service level for everybody, without offering compensation of any kind, can only anger the people affected. There probably would have been little if any opposition to the retirement reform if it had been done the same way as the health coverage one.

In the health reform, people formerly covered by RSI as independents need to update the data on their Carte Vitale as soon as possible so it can be used by the medical profession and ensure continued coverage by the system.

Pharmacies and CPAM branches have the machines that can update the Carte Vitale. This will not change the link with your mutuelle.

RECRUITING FOR THE WEDNESDAY SESSION AT ACP
Since 2003, I have run what is now called the Immigration Clinic (IC, formerly the refugee ministry). It is under the Mission Outreach Committee, the social service arm of the American Church in Paris. The sessions are held at the church every other Wednesday from 5:30PM to 7:30PM except in July and August.

In 2019, our team lost three members, so we need a few new volunteers. There are two teams, one led by a lawyer, Daniel, and the other by myself, with at least one assistant for each of us. The assistant does not need legal background or expertise in French immigration procedures.

But since we often deal with people in difficult situations who may be emotional and scared, the members of our team do need solid experience working with the homeless, refugees, domestic violence victims, drug abuse victims and the like, in order to be able to handle moments of crisis. Please contact me directly if you are interested.

www.acparis.org/worship-mission-63276/mission-outreach/missions-in-our-community

THE DEFINITIVE CLOSING OF THE GAITE (C.R.E.) THE CENTRE DE RÉCEPTION DES ÉTRANGERS
The C.R.E., the centre de réception des étrangers is a branch of the central office of the prefecture de police de Paris. There are two in Paris and exist to provide immigration services. The office located on the south side of Paris was hosted by the general police station (Commissariat Central) of the 14th arrondissement. It was the last one in need of a complete makeover. On January 21st, I learned the hard way that it had moved to a different location. I showed up with a client on that very day at 2PM and discovered that it had been moved to 42 Rue Charcot, 75013 Paris. There it is hosted by the French equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), where the titles of cars are issued. Practical information – RER / Métro : Bibliothèque François Mitterrand (RER C, ligne 14) or Chevaleret (ligne 6). The opening hours are 8:35 – 4:30 pm Monday through Thursday and 8:35 – 4:00 pm on Friday.

For the vast majority of those in need of immigration services, this is the place to go to obtain a récépissé, which is necessary in order to maintain legal residency while waiting for the appointment to renew the immigration status, whether that involves keeping the current status or changing to another one. It is also where undocumented aliens (les sans-papiers) first go to submit their initial request in the hope of getting an appointment at the central office in the Cité headquarters and submit once and for all the request to obtain a legal immigration status. As a result, early risers can see a lengthy line of applicants at the entrance quite early in the morning, long before opening hours.

Best regards,

QUESTION

IS PRORATING A BONUS BECAUSE OF AN ABSENCE IS FAIR?

I work with a client and I wanted to know how to calculate my day rate. My rate with this customer is 2750€ per month so my daily rate is 126.90€ (dividing by 21.67 days). When I make the goal I receive 250€ more.
One month, I was absent one day. I calculated 3000€ (counting the premium) divided by 21.67 days. I find it weird that my day of absence changed my bonus even though I achieved the goal.
Here is the answer of the accountant: “In fact, the premium is prorated as well. Because the premium amount of 250€ is the amount for a full month. Someone, for example, who works 4 days a week has only 4/5ths of the bonus of someone who works full time.”
This is wrong! Don’t you agree?

QUESTION

WHERE TO BUY REAL ESTATE IN PARIS

I’m wondering if there are certain arrondissements I should stay away from because you feel them to be unsafe? I know this may be a very broad generalization because there may be large sections that are dangerous in each. The maps on the websites for apartment location are so broad it is impossible to pinpoint where they are. I got lucky on the one I had the address for. I was told to stay away from the Barbès area in the 18th!

QUESTION

THE BEST IMMIGRATION STATUS FOR RUNNING A BUSINESS IN TWO COUNTRIES

I am currently in Paris for work but on a tourist 90/180 visa from the USA. I have my own business in the USA, but my press office and sales team are based in Paris. I know I will need to return to the States before the end of 90 days but return before the next 90 day period of the 180 is completed (I have to be back in Paris very soon). I have been working between Paris and NYC for the past year and a half with Schengen visas but at this point it is obviously in my best interest to procure either a talent visa or another type of long-stay visa.

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!