Once Were Warriors

April 2026

 

From Wikipedia:

Once Were Warriors is a 1994 New Zealand tragedy film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff’s bestselling 1990 first novel. The film tells the story of the Heke family, an urban Māori whānau living in South Auckland, and their problems with poverty, tobacco, gambling, drugs, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the patriarch, Jake. It explores the detrimental effects of the colonisation of New Zealand suffered by Māori, and the survival of Māori culture against all odds.

I have been deeply interested for years in the Māori culture, from its distant origins in a tribal group from South-East Asia, today China, which used long outrigger canoes to go from island to island and populate from Hawaii to New Zealand.

This movie is very well done. The Polynesian culture that Māori is part of has been making men warriors for 6,000 years. That is the aspect that interests me today. The father, Jake, is constantly looking for a fight to demonstrate how strong he is. His two sons are crushed by such a father. Each of them dives in his own way into the ancestral culture to become a warrior able to stand up to the father and be respected. Most rugby fans, at least once in their life, have seen the New Zealand team play internationally. The majority of the players are Māori. They prepare themselves on the field by performing a haka.

From Wikipedia:

Haka (/ˈhɑːkə/; singular and plural haka, in both Māori and New Zealand English) are a variety of ceremonial dances in Māori culture. A performance art, haka is often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. Haka have been traditionally performed by both men and women for a variety of social functions within Māori culture. They are performed to welcome distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions, or funerals.

Originally, it was a warrior song asking the gods for victory. Members of opposing teams say that it is scary to witness and gives the NZ team a significant psychological advantage.

This leads me to question how one defines a warrior. Is a soldier a warrior? Does military training produce a warrior or just a skilled soldier? Each nation is different, but some have a long tradition promoting a fighting spirit, often mixed with duty to protect the clan, ethnicity, or group. Such a country could be considered a nation of warriors.

Persia, now Iran, has been a great nation for some three millennia and is mentioned in the Old Testament. In recent times, there was an Iran-Iraq war from September 22, 1980, to August 20, 1988. Iraq was heavily supported by the monarchies of the Middle East, the USA, and others, while Iran was more isolated. The invasion was stopped right away, and Iran ended up not giving up any of its territory. Persia, now Iran, is a nation of warriors. I do not doubt that the best American forces on the ground are capable of overcoming the Iranian military forces, but the American casualties would be huge.

IMMIGRATION IDs ARE BECOMING MORE EXPENSIVE
Immigrants rarely strike or demonstrate about their living and working conditions. So, for France, increasing the cost of immigration documentation is politically safe. Immigrants who have not been naturalized do not vote and thus have no leverage even at the ballot box. But since the vast majority of immigrants have lower-salaried jobs with lower pay, an increase in renewal costs of 50€ or 100€ can put a serious strain on their budget.

Here is the information on the increases as conveyed by the government.

The standard fee for initial issuance of temporary residence permits (CST), multi-year residence permits (CSP), and resident cards (CR), previously 200 euros, has been increased to 300 euros.

The reduced fee for initial issuance of CSTs, CSPs, and CRs to certain categories of foreign nationals increased from 50 euros to 100 euros. As before, this rate applies to students and similar categories (interns, au pairs, job seekers), recipients of accident and health insurance benefits, beneficiaries of family reunification, and seasonal workers.

The stamp duty for the issuance, renewal, replacement, or modification of residence permits and resident cards has doubled, from €25 to €50.

The fee for a long-stay visa serving as a residence permit or exempting the holder from the requirement for a residence permit increased from €200 to €300 (or from €50 to €100 for the reduced rate).

The fee for a regularization visa, applicable to foreigners who have entered or are residing in the country illegally, increased from €200 to €300 (including a non-refundable portion due upon filing the regularization application, which rose from €50 to €100).

A new fee of €100 has been introduced for the issuance and renewal of a provisional residence permit (APS), with two exceptions (APS for those exiting prostitution and APS for beneficiaries of temporary protection).

The stamp duty applicable to applications for naturalization, applications for reinstatement of French nationality, and declarations of acquisition of nationality increased from €55 to €255.

 

SCANDINAVIAN ROYAL FAMILY MEMBERS SERVE IN THE MILITARY AND CAN BE ON ACTIVE DUTY
As I drafted this issue, the war in the Middle East was escalating daily with no apparent end in sight. In my Facebook feed, I get a lot of posts about the Scandinavian royals, as I have expressed interest in the Danish royal family and especially Queen Margrethe II when she stepped down. I attended the New Year’s Eve royal concert in Copenhagen with my wife and my cousin’s family. At midnight, the queen gave a speech, shown on a screen in the concert hall, informing the country that she was stepping down. I always liked her, and not just because she married a Frenchman, Prince Henrik of Denmark, Count of Monpezat, born Henri Marie Jean André de Laborde de Monpezat. I greatly admire what she is doing for her country now that she is free of the major official duties of being queen.

I loosely followed 19-year-old Danish Crown Prince Christian’s military service as he completed training and qualified for the Guards Hussar in 2025. He joined the regiment in full capacity in February 2026. Intrigued, I checked the other Scandinavian royal families and saw similar things happening.

Wikipedia
Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland (Sweden)
He completed his military service at the Amphibious Battalion at Vaxholm Coastal Artillery Regiment as a combat boat commander (Combat Boat 90) in the autumn of 2000. In December 2002, Carl Philip was promoted to second lieutenant, and in 2004 to the rank of lieutenant in the Swedish Amphibious Corps. In 2007 and 2008 he went to the Swedish Defence University. … After that course, he was appointed captain. On 1 October 2014, Carl Philip achieved the rank of major.

Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway
In September 2024, the Norwegian Royal Court announced that Ingrid Alexandra served as a gunner on a CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle. The Court also announced that she extended her military service to 15 months. She completed her military service on 4 April 2025.

A well-known example outside of Scandinavia concerns Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. He completed officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned as a cornet in the Blues and Royals. He served briefly alongside his elder brother, William, Prince of Wales. He was deployed twice on active service in Afghanistan: for ten weeks in Helmand Province in 2007–08, and for twenty weeks with the Army Air Corps in 2012–13. His grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, served during WWII in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as an ambulance driver.

Too often, we think of princes and princesses living lavishly in castles, having the easiest possible time in life. In recent generations, though, princes and princesses serve in uniform, are trained for combat, and are ready to be deployed when needed.

Maybe it is time to rewrite the fairy tales we read to our children to reflect this change in the world. Maybe the executives of some countries I have in mind should not deploy military personnel so readily.

FACTURES ELECTRONIQUES: GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION & REALITY
Many clients have asked me about messages they are getting from the French tax offices as well as several organizations. Everybody is talking about September 2026 as the deadline to adopt the new electronic billing procedure. Consultants working alone without employees – who make up most of my clientele – have an extra year, until September 2027, to comply.

Considering what is at stake and how much disruption this change will create, it is worth describing and warning people about what is coming.

The goal is simple. French law heavily regulates business invoices. Most small businesses and maybe some mid-size businesses do not comply with the law. Thus, the idea is that forcing everybody to use the same software to create invoices will fix the problem. But organizing this new system is leading to a long list of problems for which, as far as I have heard, there are not yet any solutions.

The most common issue is that the electronic invoice must be issued in French, as the companies issuing them are French businesses. Some of my clients have nearly 100% of their clientele in the USA and so must be able to invoice in English, or in both languages in some cases. Will the software allow a second language?

Another problem is that many consultants are required to use clients’ software so their invoices comply with the clients’ systems. Will the French administration accept that there are two sets of invoices? I doubt it.

Consultants serving private individuals are accustomed to clients sometimes paying a few cents less than the amount due because of exchange-rate fluctuations, loss of focus, simply getting the amount wrong, routing it to the wrong bank account, and so on. Currently, it is easy to destroy an invoice and generate a new one matching the reality.

The new official software, however, does not allow for changing anything. Any discrepancy will lead to a problematic accounting situation, multiplying what one’s accountant must record and hence increasing the fee owed. Additionally, the software itself is quite expensive, which could deter anyone crazy enough to want to master it and retain some control over their accounting.

What I consider to be the worst consequence linked to the complexity of the new software is that all micro enterprises will need to hire an accountant.

The government’s official reason for the change is to help businesses achieve legal and clean accounting. I see an obvious desire to control the auto-entrepreneur type of business, based on an assumption that they cheat and hide some income.

I am optimistic that the lobbies protecting tiny businesses will be fighting this legislation at full strength in an effort to exclude businesses that have no employees or are exempt from paying TVA, for example.

We will see. My advice is that even though the deadline is September 2027, it’s a good idea to get to know what the new system is and what it means in terms of change for most people.

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS WERE HELD ON MARCH 15 AND 22
There has been a lot of talk about which parties are the real winners in the last elections. Without wanting to be provocative, I would say instead that all parties involved in the elections lost in terms of what their objectives were. I wrote the following about these elections in my December 2025 column.

“As of today, the identity of the (progressive) candidate is still unknown, and the different factions are incapable of agreeing on who should lead the campaign and become the next mayor. The conservative side seems to have made its choice: Ms. Rachida Dati, the current mayor of the 7th arrondissement. So, depending on the polls, her chances of victory would appear to lie between possible and probable. This having been said, she is under criminal investigation for some serious felonies, and could be stripped of her right to be elected.”

The Socialist Party’s candidate, in the end, was Emmanuel Grégoire, a previously obscure politician at the national level. As the progressive candidate, he went on to win the election. Adding the far left candidate’s result, that side got 58.48% of the vote, while Dati received only 41.52%.

Objectively, the Parisian population is not that leftist. But many specialists believe that, in the second round, conservative voters preferred the socialist candidate over the conservative one, explaining the wide gap. I believe one reason is that Dati’s trial is scheduled for September 16–28 at the Paris Criminal Court. If she is convicted, the principal sentence she faces is ten years in prison for passive corruption and a fine of 450,000 euros (half of the amount in dispute) for receiving stolen property. She is also subject to an additional penalty of a five-year ban on holding public office. In short, why vote for a candidate who may be barred from being the mayor a year or so later? The office does not come with absolute immunity.

A good friend asked me to expand on my idea that all the parties lost, as it sounds odd at best, if not insane. I admit that some further explanation is required.

For centuries, starting with the early days of the 1789 French Revolution, the French political spectrum has been made up of four factions:

The nationalistic Conservatives focus on the interests of France and the French. Today, it is represented by the Le Pen party, the Rassemblement national (RN), and those with similar views. The traditional leaders of this faction have pretty much all disappeared, so the extremist RN party has taken their place.

The internationalist Conservatives consider treaties, alliances, and domestic policy to be the best way to take care of people living in France. They include most of the conservative French presidents of the Fifth Republic. Of course, they believe that helping businesses helps the people later on. Today, the most visible member of this faction is Edouard Phillipe and his party, Horizons.

The internationalist Liberals have employee interests in mind, and their domestic policy is mixed with international treaties. The Socialist Party has upheld this platform for 70 years. The new Parisian mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, has today become probably the best-known leader of this faction.

The nationalistic Leftists used to be represented by the Communist Party, and the majority of its leaders also led France’s largest union in those days, the CGT, so they fought for their members. Today, this faction has changed almost beyond recognition. It is represented by La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but there is wide agreement that LFI is too extreme to fit into the traditional spectrum.

President Emmanuel Macron’s political party was meant to hold a kind of middle ground on this spectrum, but it has now shrunk to virtually nothing. So in a way, we are back to the traditional four factions. The two traditional “internationalist” parties remain prominent but are losing ground. The extreme far right and far left received a lot of votes in the recent elections, but did not win most large cities. They are still on the fringe. After that explanation, I hope my comment – that all parties involved in the elections lost in terms of what their objectives were – makes a lot more sense.

WHEN HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES ARE SCHENGEN-COMPLIANT
Health insurance classified as “Schengen compliant” may not offer coverage as good as I had thought. Some policies seem to be “comprehensive” only until you look at the fine print.

Below are three situations people face when they ask for an immigration visa, for which a health insurance policy is a key document. The strategies needed will depend on the applicant’s needs, age, and plans.

1 – The applicant is going to France to work
The public insurance kicks in almost immediately, so one can choose minimal coverage for the couple of weeks or so that it will take for the public coverage to begin.

2 – The applicant has excellent international coverage from the USA
The policy required to comply with the Schengen visa can once again be minimal, since it is unlikely ever to be used.

3 – The applicant is getting a visiteur immigration visa
It is crucial to be aware of differences in the coverage and in the willingness of the insurance company to provide the needed insurance. There are two subcategories here:
a – The applicant will sign up with CPAM to obtain public coverage as soon as possible. There is a double delay, both in the start of public coverage (three months after landing in France) and in the issuance of proof that the file is being worked on. Since a carte vitale is not issued until one has a definitive French social security number, the process can take months or even a year or more. There is a common misconception on social media that everything is settled after a three-month presence in France. But that period is just the time it takes to have the right to send in the file; it is the beginning of the procedure, not the end. I strongly advise people in this situation to choose good comprehensive coverage. French medical procedures are cheaper than in the USA, but a day in the emergency room still costs about 1,370 euros.

b – The applicant chooses to retain private health coverage, in which case the policy chosen must be truly comprehensive, and the company chosen must have an excellent reputation for providing coverage right away without an out-of-pocket even if it reimburses later.

Recently, one of my clients needed a serious operation. It took about four months between the discovery of the condition and the date of the operation, as nothing could be scheduled during the summer vacation. The insurance company informed my client the day before the surgery that it would not cover the operation. Tiny print in the policy stated that coverage only existed if the surgery occurred two days, 48h, after discovery of the condition. The entire cost ended up being nearly 20,000 euros. This is a scam, not a comprehensive policy. The company proudly stated in its condescending answer to my letter that the policy was fully Schengen compliant and that they did absolutely nothing wrong. The insured had signed and was aware of the terms and conditions of the policy. French private insurance companies can be just as bad as American ones.

FRENCH INCOME TAX DECLARATION TIME HAS STARTED
I always send revised information on the tax schedule, as the dates change every year.

The paper version of the 2025 income declaration must be filed in France by midnight on May 20, 2026. The declaration forms will be available at www.impots.gouv.fr starting on April 9. That is also the day you can start filing your declaration on the same website. To do so, you need a tax ID number (numéro fiscal) and a password.

If you are making your first income declaration to the French tax office, you should do so using the paper form and check the “first time” box on the form (CERFA #2042) where it says “Vous déposez une déclaration pour la première fois cochez” (“Check here if this is your first declaration”). You can get the tax office to give you the information needed to declare for the first time electronically, but I advise against it because using paper documents makes it easier to see and understand how the system works.

The deadline for online declarations is later than that for paper declarations. The schedule depends on your postal code:
• Départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on Thursday, May 22.
• Départements 20 to 54 by May 28.
• Départements 55 and up by June 5.

Reminder: if you are self-employed in France, the quarterly declarations sent to URSSAF do not constitute income tax declarations, which must be sent to the tax office. Many foreigners are under the mistaken impression that the quarterly declarations are their only fiscal obligation.

You are a French fiscal resident if you:
• stay in France 183 days in a calendar year, whether you have legal immigration status or not
• have immediate family members (spouse and/or minor children) who live in France and therefore are French fiscal residents
• have a French employer
• run a French business, even something like tutoring schoolchildren in English.

Occasionally, you may have a year with no tax owed to France, either because you only had foreign income not taxed in France or because your taxable income was too low. Make sure you continue to declare. Otherwise, this can cause a problem, such as the prefecture wanting to see your income tax bill (avis d’imposition sur le revenue), as can happen with many types of immigration status.

Unlike in the USA, filing is a two-step process. The income declaration is sent in, with no payment attached. Then, starting in August, the tax office issues the avis d’imposition sur le revenu based on the declaration, and the deadline to pay the income tax is September 15.

Many organizations in France, in both the public and private sectors, may require you to furnish an avis d’imposition. For example, the Caisse d’allocations familiale (family subsidy bureau) uses this document, among others, to decide if applicants deserve aid and, if so, how much.

MY FEES WILL INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2026
I will be increasing my fees by 20% at the beginning of the next scholastic year, after the 2026 summer vacation. Here are the new rates:
1st meeting/1st work: 420€ euros for 2 hours
Extra hour(s): 180 euros per hour
Handling mail at my office: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-office meetings: 90 euros, assuming less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend, on national French holidays, and during vacations: 30%
Clients paying by wire to an American account must add $20 to the fee to cover the bank charge for processing a wire transfer.
Bounced checks incur a charge of $20 or 20 euros.

THE SHIP STUDIO IS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL IN JUNE 2026
The SHIP studio is currently available on June 1st if the current tenant does not extend the lease. I am finally getting a lot more requests and have had to refuse a few lately, as it was already rented. When people contact me about renting it, I send them to the website. I hope it shows how cozy the accommodations are. The monthly rent of 1,400€ is all-inclusive. While I continue to favor rentals lasting between two and six months, under certain conditions, I have accepted one-month rentals.
https://www.jeantaquet.com/home-in-paris

OFFICE CLOSED FOR SUMMER VACATION
The office will be closed for seven weeks over the summer, from the evening of Friday, July 3rd, to the morning of Monday, August 24th. 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, and Sarah or I will honor prefecture meetings already scheduled, as well as a few other engagements. Like last year, I should be away from the office for most of the time, but I will stay in France, specifically in Burgundy.

Best regards,