May 2025
The Apprentice, according to Wikipedia, was “an American reality television series that judged the business skills of a group of contestants. It ran in various formats across fifteen seasons on NBC from 2004 to 2017. The Apprentice was created by British television producer Mark Burnett, and co-produced with Donald Trump, who was the show’s host for the first fourteen seasons.”
The exclamation “You’re fired!” is still iconic despite the end of the show some eight years ago. In the series, Donald Trump was an actor playing a successful businessman who trained people to be as successful as he supposedly was. The current situation makes me think of interviews with actors who gained international fame playing medical doctors and were then asked to save people in real life at the scene of an accident. It is fascinating to me that a significant portion of the population in the USA and many other countries are so drawn into TV programs that they end up mistaking fiction for reality. The fame of Donald Trump due to this program helped considerably in attracting voters and ultimately winning elections.
This is not the first time an actor has been elected president of the USA. But while Ronald Reagan’s career as an actor certainly helped him get elected as governor of California, when he ran for president in 1980, it was as a governor, not a movie star. Donald Trump claimed that the character he played in The Apprentice was also him in real life. He maintained that he owned and ran a real estate empire in the USA and abroad.
During his first term, as well as the first 100 days of his second term, he never publicly used the famous exclamation “You’re fired” even though, as president, he has fired many people or forced them to resign. For me, it illustrates that his appearance of strength and determination came from his ability as an actor, and he played it very well. I believe that in real life, as president, he does not show these characteristics, although he is a gifted communicator. Some might go so far as to think that the actor, i.e., the character, was elected and not so much the individual in real life.
One could say there is nothing new here, and since the JFK presidential campaign, advertising aired on TV has marketed the candidates more than anything else. I often go back to Donald Trump’s first campaign in 2016, which was built on the fame he had coming out of the TV series. I believe the question of reality vs “reality” TV has some merits regarding the truthfulness of his representation as a successful businessman in real life.
WIKIPEDIA
Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947 – January 20, 2022), better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, was an American singer and actor. He was known for his powerful, wide-ranging voice and theatrical live shows. His Bat Out of Hell album trilogy – Bat Out of Hell (1977), Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993), and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (2006 – has sold more than 100 million records
THE EU SETS TIMELINES FOR TWO NEW BORDER CONTROL SYSTEMS
In the last quarter of 2026, the European Commission plans to implement new border management systems, including the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS).
ETIAS is a travel permit, not a visa.
The 30 member states of the enlarged Schengen area will require it for entry. It involves payment of a seven-euro fee, which will be charged to nationals of some 60 countries outside the European Union who are currently authorized to travel to countries in the enlarged Schengen area for up to 90 days without a visa. The fee will not be charged to people under 18 or over 70, or to family members of European citizens or third-country nationals who have the right to move freely within the European Union.
This fully electronic system, similar to the US Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), will reinforce checks on foreign travelers within the European Union, intended to detect potential threats. ETIAS will have to be applied for prior to travel and will be valid for three years or until the expiry of the travel document registered at the time of application.
The EU Entry/Exit System Will Be Implemented Earlier
From October 2025, under current plans, the EU Entry/Exit System (EES), designed to strengthen control procedures at the Schengen area’s external borders, will be used to electronically record the entry, exit, and refusal of entry into the Schengen area of third-country nationals wishing to enter the Schengen area for a short stay (maximum 90 days out of a total period of 180 days).
In concrete terms, manual stamping of travel documents will be replaced by registration of individual files in a centralized database, including date and place of entry and exit, facial images, and fingerprints. The database will automatically calculate the duration of the authorized short stay. The remaining time can be consulted by the traveler and border guards, as well as police and military personnel on missions to combat illegal immigration.
The new timeline for putting the EES and ETIAS into effect was adopted on March 5th, 2025, by EU home affairs ministers. The plan is to phase in the EES gradually over six months to give border authorities and the transportation industry time to adjust to the new procedures.
This might sound abstract, but people should realize how it will affect their lives. For many years, North Americans have been able to overstay in France for anything from a few months to several years without encountering difficulties. I am aware of only two instances where police acted on flagrant abuse of the situation at the airport. One person had to pay a fine of about 100 euros, and the other was sent home without any criminal charges.
Now, the incredible leniency of the French police will have to stop. The EES will mean creating an electronic record. Overstaying will become obvious. This is EU legislation, and the French police will have to enforce it, including the imposition of penalties. Those who have been taking advantage of police leniency should think about getting a lawful immigration status if they want to continue to live in France and travel occasionally to the USA.
https://travel-europe.europa.eu/revised-timeline-ees-and-etias-2025-03-07_en
The UK Electronic Travel Authorisation is already operating
I normally do not address British issues so I have copied and pasted text from the UK website on its new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), which affects people living in France.
www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-an-electronic-travel-authorisation-eta
Who can get an ETA
Whether you can get an ETA depends on your nationality as shown on your passport.
Check if you can apply for an ETA.
Who does not need an ETA
You do not need an ETA if:
- 1 – you have a visa
- 2 – you have permission to live, work or study in the UK (including settled or pre-settled status or right of abode)
- 3 – you are transiting through a UK airport and you will not pass through border control – check with your airline if you are not sure
- 4 – you are a British or Irish citizen
- 5 – you are travelling with a British overseas territories citizen passport
- 6 – you are travelling with a British National (Overseas) passport
- 7 – you live in Ireland and you are travelling from Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man
- 8 – you are a child travelling on the France-UK school trip travel information form
- 9 – you are exempt from immigration control or obtaining permission to enter
Dual citizens
If you are a dual citizen with British or Irish citizenship, you do not need an ETA. Prove your permission to travel using a: :
- 1 – valid British passport
- 2 – valid Irish passport
- 3 – other valid passport containing a certificate of entitlement
What you can do with an ETA
You can:
- 1 – come to the UK for up to 6 months for tourism, visiting family and friends, business or short-term study
- 2 – come to the UK for up to 3 months on the Creative Worker visa concession
- 3 – come to the UK for a permitted paid engagement
- 4 – transit through a UK airport if you will pass through border control – check with your airline if you are not sure
If you are coming to the UK for another reason, check if you need a visa instead.
An ETA does not guarantee entry to the UK. You still need to either:
- 1 – see a Border Force officer
- 2 – use an ePassport gate
You may want to apply for a Standard Visitor visa instead if you have a criminal record or you were previously refused entry into the UK.
What you cannot do with an ETA
You cannot:
- 1 – stay in the UK for longer than 6 months
- 2 – do paid or unpaid work for a UK company or as a self-employed person, unless you are doing a permitted paid engagement or event or work on the Creative Worker visa concession
- 3 – claim public funds (benefits)
- 4 – live in the UK through frequent or successive visits
- 5 – marry or register a civil partnership, or give notice of marriage or civil partnership – you need to apply for a Marriage Visitor visa
How much it cost
It costs £16 to apply.
Everyone travelling needs to get an ETA, including babies and children. You can apply for other people. You cannot get a refund after you apply.
FRENCH INCOME TAX DECLARATION TIME IS NOW
Just a quick reminder: the paper version of the 2024 income declaration must be filed in France by midnight on May 22nd, 2025. The declaration forms have been available at www.impots.gouv.fr since April 13th. 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.
Note that 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 May 25th.
• Départements 20 to 54 by June 1st.
• Départements 55 and up by June 8th.
THE TRAFFIC IN PARIS IS ALMOST ALWAYS THE SAME (SORT OF!)
It feels like every foreigner living in Paris has a blog, and they all comment on the Parisian traffic and how much it is constantly changing. The part about the constant change is true. It is also true that one reason Henry IV was assassinated in Paris on May 14th, 1610, was because there was a huge traffic jam and François Ravaillac had plenty of time to commit his crime.
To illustrate what is happening today, I would like to describe two modifications in my neighborhood.
The nearby kindergarten and elementary school that our children attended share the same building. For a long time, the street was wide with a large volume of traffic. The sidewalks were widened to provide space where parents could wait for the children to come out, and for other gatherings. Then the tiny portion of the street in front of the schools went from one way to no way in early 2021. Construction was carried out for six months or more. The space between the two school buildings was remodeled. The stairs up to each building were eliminated, and each school’s entrance is now at street level. There are trees and plants alongside each building, with a space in the middle for bicycles. All this sounds great, but driving a car on that street is now a nightmare, as on both sides, the traffic makes a U-turn, sending the cars back to where they came from and then in the direction of leaving Paris.
We park our car in a nearby modern building that faces another kindergarten and elementary school. The entrance and exit are at opposite ends of this wide building. Two barriers were added, making the street a dead end on both sides. Leaving and entering the underground parking is now a lot easier, as there is no traffic. The space dedicated to the children and their parents is safe and looks almost like a playground. But a succession of one-way streets, with several right and left turns, makes it complicated to get back to the normal fluid traffic.
One reason driving a car in Paris is getting so complicated and traffic jams appear so quickly is that the municipal government is intentionally changing the way traffic flows to make it less fluid everywhere it can. One needs to live in the same neighborhood long enough to see the evolution.
All these renovations, modifications, and improvements have two distinct goals. One is to add vegetation everywhere possible, increase the number of pedestrian streets as well as the bicycle paths, and improve the safety of streets near schools, hospitals, and other facilities. The other is to redesign car and truck traffic to make it a nightmare to drive in Paris, the main aim being to cut down on air pollution by discouraging the use of private vehicles.
A HIDDEN TAX INCREASE WHEN PURCHASING FRENCH REAL ESTATE
Governments always try to hide tax increases so that people are unaware of them. Here is a recent case in point.
The vast majority of the amount paid to the notaire when purchasing real estate is a combination of various taxes. One of them is called the Droits de Mutation à Titre Onéreux (DMTO). The latest rise in notary fees is the result of a decision by some départements to increase the DMTO by 0.5 points under the Finance Act of 2025. This decision was taken after three consecutive years of declining real estate transactions, resulting in a reduction in tax revenue for the départements, which benefit from DMTO collection. To compensate for the loss of revenue, the increase in notaire fees was authorized.
This affects buyers’ budgets in the départements that have adopted this increase. The extra cost for buyers is 500 euros for every 100,000 euros of property price. For example, the buyer of a property costing 300,000 euros will have to pay an extra 1,500 euros. This additional cost may prove difficult for some buyers.
THE SHIP STUDIO IS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL THIS SUMMER
The SHIP studio is currently available on August 1st. 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 holidays, from the evening of Friday, July 4th to the morning of Monday, August 25th. 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 that time but I will stay in France.
Best regards,
QUESTION
HEIR OF A FRENCH ESTATE WHILE LIVING IN THE USA
I live in the USA, and my uncle died last month. He was a US citizen who had been living in Nantes for the last 40 years. He left without a will, and I believe that I am the next of kin as his siblings are all dead, including my father.
The next step after the funeral is settling my uncle’s estate. I have been communicating with a notaire’s office as he owned an apartment in Nantes. The notaire’s firm told me to hire a genealogist to prove I am the legitimate heir. This would cost about 3,000 euros and I would have to pay for it.I do not see the need for this, but the notaire refuses to take my word for it.
ANSWER
You believe, and you may be right, that you are the next of kin. But proving it the way French law demands will be more difficult than you think. French estate law follows bloodlines, ascending and descending. Assuming your uncle had no children, then you are a potential heir, but so are your siblings and any cousins you may have. You hold the same rank in the succession as any children of all your late uncles and aunts, your father’s siblings. You did not mention whether you have siblings or if any cousins exist.
It is easy to prove that you are a possible heir by providing your uncle’s and father’s birth certificates, which will list the same parents, showing that they are siblings. You also need both of their death certificates. Then you add your birth certificate to the pile, showing your blood link to your uncle.
But you also need to prove that you are the only heir living, as the niece of your late uncle. It is not enough to collect the documents proving your status. You also have to prove that you are the only one with this status. That is extremely difficult – indeed, impossible. You can provide all the birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates you want, but that does not prove that there are no others.
Still, if your family is relatively small, you may be able to prove that all the other members with a higher rank or the same rank as you are dead. Then you would have some leverage. As far as we know, no one has a succession rank higher than or equal to yours. You only need to create a genealogical tree starting with your grandparents, and submit the documents linked to the people mentioned in it.
Nevertheless, the notaire may doubt that you have submitted all the documents proving that all the members of your extended family with a higher or equal claim are dead and that no one can challenge your status as next of kin.
The sad thing about this situation is that you are probably in a better place than a genealogist to gather the documents and do the research. You might end up doing a better job than any genealogist can. But thenotaire has a right to doubt the result of your research since you have an obvious interest in being declared next of kin.
Hence, despite all your efforts, you may end up having to pay the genealogist after all. So instead of being up in arms against this professional, you might be better off negotiating a significant reduction of their fees, since you will provide the documents needed, and the genealogist’s only job will be to state that there is no one challenging your status.
QUESTION
WAYS TO GET A LEGAL STAY IN FRANCE WITHOUT A VISA
I need someone who can help people get a carte de séjour. I am Argentinian. I just found a home, a maid’s room! I have a couple of jobs and I am paid officially about 450 per month. My son has been attending elementary school for the past three years. I came with my wife on a tourist visa over three years ago. Can I ask for my regularization now? Should it be linked to my work, my wife, or my son?
ANSWER
Allow me to put your request in a bigger context. There is legal immigration, which almost always starts with asking for an immigration visa from the French consulate in one’s home country. Once in France, there is a procedure to secure this immigration right and be allowed to stay in France and renew the immigration status. What you are talking about is a different procedure, the one defined in French law to allow an undocumented alien living in France to submit a request, complying with strict guidelines, for a legal stay. In short, an illegal stay may, under certain conditions, grant the right to obtain a legal one.
Only two types of immigration status are allowed with this procedure. One is family regularization, which requires at least a five-year stay. Since you can only prove a three-year stay, you are disqualified from asking for this status. But under the legal change that went into effect on January 24th, 2025, it is still possible to submit a request based on work history by proving a three-year presence in France, including two years of having worked at least 18 hours a week, backed up with pay slips.
I would like to review this second procedure and give you details of the file you need to request this regularization. One thing you should look into first, however, is that if your official net pay totals 450 euros a month, the pay is not enough to show that you work 18 hours a week.
The file is divided into three sections:
1 – Proving your presence in France
This section allows the prefecture to ascertain whether you qualify to ask for the right to work as an employee. The requirement has evolved over the years. My advice is to have one document per month with your name, the name of the issuing organization, the date, and the location. It can be a utility bill, a rent receipt, a bank statement, or a doctor’s prescription. The file should be organized such that the older documents are at the top. If you are missing a few, it is not a problem. But you must have at least one valid document for every quarter of the three years.
2 – Proving you have worked in France
Past employment can only be proved with pay slips in your name. The information you gave me indicates that you are only working officially, i.e., with payslips, for 48 hours per month, when you should have 78 hours minimum. So the first thing you need to do is persuade some of your under-the-table employers to pay you legally so that you reach the required minimum of hours.
3 – Proving that an employer is sponsoring you The right to work will be grounded on so-called future employment. Even if the current employer is sponsoring this procedure, past and future employment are two totally different things, legally speaking. This section of the file needs to contain a full-time contract for future work that will pay at least the French minimum wage (SMIC), which amounts to 17,100 euros of net annual taxable income.
Here are the documents that should be in the file.
1 – Personal information
Current passport, with all the pages, plus any older one(s) you may have
Proof of the date of entry in France (often the stamp in the passport or the ticket you traveled with)
Birth certificate (original and certified translation)
Marriage license (original and certified translation) and your spouse’s passport
Your son’s passport
His birth certificate (original and certified translation)
Proof of his schooling.
2 – Presence in France
One folder per year of presence in France, organized chronologically inside each folder, and with the oldest folder on top. An income tax document and the state health coverage (AME) card should be at the top of each folder, as these documents carry a lot of weight. Aside from those, as I indicated earlier, just about any document works for this section of the file.
3 – Past work in France
If you are paid by CESU, then the payslips are organized by year. The payslips of all employers for each month should be together to facilitate the calculation of the number of hours.
4 – Sponsoring employer
CERFA contract, filled out, signed, and sealed
Initial and current CESU registration
His/her personal French income tax statement called (avis d’imposition sur le revenu)
By the way, the employers are extremely reluctant to give this document to their employees. Therefore, there is a way to submit it directly to the prefecture without the employee even knowing that the document has been submitted!
This should be a good start.
Each prefecture is different when it comes to submitting the file. It can be sent registered letter, uploaded to a website, or sent as an attachment to an email. If the documents are PDFs, make sure the quality of the scanning is really good, as the file might need to be severely compressed, and you want the workers at the prefecture to be able to read the documents.
DISCLAIMER
Please forward this message to all those who would be interested in its contents. The information contained in this newsletter is intended only as general information. I strongly urge readers to seek professional guidance concerning the legal and tax matters mentioned. This newsletter is intended as a general guide and is not to be taken as professional advice.