I’m a staunch remainer as well Teresa. However, if you can find it then @Sandy_Hewlett has described very eloquently why she voted to leave elsewhere on this forum. What she has said is well reasoned and I respect her point of view even though I don’t agree with her. I will try to find it.
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It reminds me of when I visited the Eco Musée, a housing museum in Alsace. The main display in one of the houses explains how for a lot of WW2 family members supporting different sides in the conflict lived there together.
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To be fair that would be much more stressful.
Perhaps you’re like me. I have waited ten years to use this privilege and just happen to be in a position where I can retire permanently in France and it becomes a stressful scramble to put it all in place.
Some bedtime reading. No pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/med-mountain-views-friends-in-france/one-persons-truth-about-brexit/1936989536391347/
@Sandy_Hewlett states it’s for the benefit of the next and subsequent generations. My daughter’s partner whose company receives a third of their funding from the EU would not agree.
I strongly believe that the next generation will do everything possible to rejoin the EU in the next ten to fifteen years.
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I think we should all upsticks and move lock, stock and barrel to the Russian Federation 
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I have a few years to go before retiring.
In practice Brexit might not change my retirement plans all that much. We did think of retiring to France but I need to look carefully how much my pension is worth and how the French tax regimen would affect me - I don’t think I will be so badly off that I cannot afford to keep the house so the options are
a) Retire to France, assuming sufficient income to meet the “inactif” limits and not too badly hit by being taxed in France.
b) Visit for longer than we do now but not more than 90 days at a stretch or more than 6 months in the year.
a) is doable for citizens of 3rd nations now, I do not see why it would change b) is also something that is quite possible for non EU citizens and, again I don’t see why it would be impossible post Brexit for us.
For me freedom of movement is rather theoretical - I work at a fairly senior level in my job but for various reasons, including having had two careers, I don’t work at the higher level that I could get recognised in France. I don’t even think my job exists in France - I could get my basic qualifications recognised, maybe even the intermediary ones but I think I’d have to go back to square one in seniority. Which I’m way too old to do - I’d have to speak fluent French as well to stand a chance.
Maybe I could re-ignite my IT career but even then I would have to speak better French than I do and most of the jobs are in larger cities, Paris especially, where I would not particularly wish to live. Besides I’d have the additional hurdle of “no recent experience”.
My wife is the same - her job involves the application of UK law, and the role does not really exist in the same way in France - where it is effectively a closed shop anyway.
With FoM we could go and settle in France but could not take our jobs with us and would throw away comfortable salaries - it’s not something we want to do. So loosing FoM takes something that we don’t want to do, and would seriously impact our income and pensions into something that we don’t want to do, would seriously impact our income and pensions and would be difficult and bureaucratic - no change there, then 
However it is an important principle and my son will loose the right to work in the EU if he wishes (not that he has shown any propensity to want to do that but he has a few years to go before he really has to pin his colours on a particular career path). I’m pretty annoyed that he will be denied the right to do that.
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the commitment is pretty normal in my case: my partner (pacs) and our kids are French as is my business, my employee, all family and nearly all friends here. French is the language I use all day everyday at home and at work, it’s the only language I hear and my highest qualification is a French one too (Bac+4), it was just a case of getting round to it one day!
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Our daughter has a 1st class honours degree in German and International Business.
She has lived in Munich for 20 years.
She is now MD of one of the investment subsidiaries of Allianz and has to go for German citizenship, even though she is married to an Austrian.
With German citizenship she can travel on business throughout Schengen which after a hard brexit she would not be able to do.
Our grandsons will have to wait until they are 18 and they can decide which nationality/nationalities to take.
Unfortunately, for them it will proabably be a no brainer.
Our son in law travels all over the world and a hard brexit will affect him.
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I can’t believe how well things worked out for me. I’d owned my French house for years and wanted to move here but there was no way I could expect to continue in the same job so decided to continue working and earning a good salary and retire as soon as was financially sensible. Then, out of the blue I was offered an early retirement package, took it with both hands and moved here. If I’d continued working I would have had to cut a year off my plans to squeeze in before B-day. As it is I’m settled, have over five years residence under my belt and and I’m still younger than my forecast retirement age. It’s all worked out well.
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Well I feel that I am losing a right.
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Travel up to 90 days for tourism or business is allowed under current rules for non-EU citizens so I’m not sure she will necessarily have to take up German citizenship just so she can go to a business meeting in another EU country.
If done after “B” day she might have to renounce UK citizenship to take up German citizenship.
How so?
No-one quite knows what is going to happen, but (say) France is not going to change its rules regarding non-EU citizens just because of Brexit (why would it?) so the default case is that those rules will simply apply to UK citizens as well, with possibly some extensions/exceptions to cover people who exercised freedom of movement.
Sounds like you were in much the same situation that I’m in now.
Unfortunately, short of winning the lottery I’m stuck at work for the next 12 years.
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I’ve added you to the list… if I win the Lottery… there will be a lot of happy folk around the world… 
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It’s not just a right for me it is an emotion.
I believe in Europe as a bulwark between the USA and Russia.
Europe is just not trade deals, it is keeping peace in Europe itself.
It has so upset me that I can equate it to two major points in my life.
I was adopted and I lost my adopted father when I was thirteen and was left in a very unhappy place.
I kept hoping that when I was twenty one I might hear from my natural father.
Eventually I traced my natural family only to find out he had no idea that I existed.
When I tried to trace him much later my natural mother took me to the High Court to stop me finding him.
She lied saying that she had no idea where in England he was.
I subsequently discovered he was an officer in the Australian Air Force.
This is all rejection and when people say that we can agree to disagree, because they believe that things may, or may not be better for the UK in the future, I say have you any idea how much hurt and emotional pain you are causing?
Not just to me but to all of us who believe that Europe is more than a trading block and if you have come to the conclusion that we do not matter, more shame on you.
Tread softly for you tread on our dreams.
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I’m not sure that is completely correct.
Once you have entered the free movement area, you are free to travel around it which is how, for example, Eritreans (who are not EU Citizens) manage to cross many borders in their search for utopia (aka the UK).
If they are discovered in breach of entry rules - that is to say they did not enter the country legally with no means to prove it (a visa in the case of non Europeans) then they can be removed back to their point of entry. If they are granted a visa (or whatever device to formalise their entry) they are then free to move within the Schengen zone.
If I understand this aspect of international law correctly.
That’s a very sorry tale Jane and it’s a great shame that you had to endure that rejection. But I’m afraid I can’t relate that situation to realising how much “hurt and pain” I may have caused by my vote. We are all different in how we react to things, and we all bring baggage that, to others, might appear irrelevant but then we’re not walking in each others’ shoes.
I’m loathe to call your statements an over-reaction - they’re immensely real to you and your circumstances - but I can’t possibly relate to that situation nor how you feel so the answer to your question is: no, I have no idea how much hurt and emotional pain I’ve caused. But my Remain friends (most of whom are speaking to me although there are one or two who give me the cold shoulder) have made it very clear they are angry, disappointed, confounded, etc. So yes, I know that people are annoyed. But I’ve not met anyone who’s upset. Spitting feathers, yes … but upset, no.
I’m very sad that you’ve experienced that family trauma. That’s an awful thing to happen.
The next and future generations will have climate change to worry about, so how you think that Brexit will help them for the future is beyond me.
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