Hello just looking for advice , me my partner moved here just over a year ago , we are in social housing … My partner sells books on the markets for a living but we are not making much money at all , we pay our rsi taxes and got told we would be intiteled to Rsa but have been rejected due to not earning enough money … We are struggling to keep our head above water with the bills and really want to make it here for our children they are happy and settled , any one else been through this or no what to do next , I thought rsa was to build your business up ? Or for people with little income like our selfs any advice welcome thank you all
Have you talked to the assistant social for your commune? Your mairie will put you in touch if you ask.
The first thing to check is that you haven’t been rejected on a technicality. Are you sure you provided the correct figures and there hasn’t been a silly misunderstanding, eg you provided figures per month when they were asking for figures per week?
Assuming not, well there are always boxes to tick in order to be eligible for state benefits, no country or its taxpayers can afford to fund unlimited support to everyone who asks. For one thing, to receive benefits in France you need to be classed as having legal and stable residence here, and one of the criteria for legal residence for the first five years in France is, having sufficient resources to support yourself and not being a burden on the State. Sounds like that may be where the problem has arisen. You could argue that that criterion applies to inactifs not to those who are economically active, but the twist is that if they don’t consider a person’s activity to be a viable business, they can reclassify that person as an inactif with a hobby activity. If that’s what has happened, it’s no good appealing to CAF because they have no discretion. I do wonder if they are tightening up on this because I have seen a few posts like yours on different forums just recently.
But it’s worth talking to the assistant social because the Conseil Général does have some discretion over who is and who isn’t granted access to benefits. For instance if the CG suspects that a person has arranged things so that they tick all the boxes but they are in bad faith and are trying to manipulate the system, they can block that person’s benefits with CAF. Conversely even if on paper a person doesn’t tick all the boxes, the CG may take the view that that person is in good faith and deserves support, and can instruct the CAF to pay them benefits. So the AS may think you should put your case to them. Basically what you would need to do is to persuade the CG that you came to France with a sound, well-thought-out business plan and you confidently expected to earn enough for the family to live on, and that your OH is working hard at it full-time, and that for reasons beyond your control it’s taking longer than expected but your business is growing and will eventually bring in a sufficient income. They will probably want to see the figures, both projected and actual, to get a clear picture of how the situation has arisen.
If the CG thinks you moved here in good faith with every intention of working and contributing there’s a good chance they’ll help you, but if they think that basically you came here hoping to live at the expense of the French taxpayer, they won’t be sympathetic.
Hope this helps.
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Thank you for your reply , every thing u said is the truth we did come here expecting to earn a lot more than we have that’s why we applied as got told its to help just building it up for a short period of time till the business blossoms , I have been to the social and made a appitment , thank you again
Thanks for coming back and good luck with the appointment. It’s by no means an unusual situation but hopefully you’ll find that they will be sympathetic and work with you to find a solution. Maybe they will suggest ways to diversify the business to take it forward and make it profitable, or they may arrange for you to be accompanied by a business advisor. What they won’t do is give you access to taxpayers’ money if they don’t see any real prospect of the business becoming profitable any time soon. They’re accountable to the taxpayer and they can’t afford to be bleeding hearts. So it’s no good telling them how happy the kids are, how much you love France and how distressed you would be if you have to leave. You need to put forward as strong a case for yourselves as you can - show them you have ideas and plans on how to bring in more money, but equally that you will welcome any advice they have, take it on board and work hard to make it happen.
I went to social services they just said they could not help with any thing very unhelpful, we will just keep trying to build our business up thanks for the replays