Absolutely! It’s not enough for ONE of us to have a CdSWA, BOTH of us have to - and we are married.
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And to work here….
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“Husband” being the operative word here, not “concubine”. The rules are different if you are neither married, in a civil partnership, or in a concubine relationship evidence by an “acte de concubinage” or some other form of provable long term relationship, the appreciation of which is left to the discretion of the authorities.
https://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article5094
This booklet was probably useful at one stage (published in 2015), but the Code for Entry and Stay of non-French citizens in France was fairly significantly amended towards the end of last year (in part due to Brexit, but the government was itching to do something about other issues it had), so it would probably be more helpful to try and find a more recent work.
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It seems to me that Mary is conflating several different things here.
The Withdrawal Agreement made provision for the established partner of a person who was exercising FoM before the end of transition and thus protected by the WA. In theory it was simply necessary to prove that an established relationship existed prior to the end of transition, for that partner to qualify for a residence permit.
This should have been relatively easy to prove in genuine cases because couples do live apart for various reasons, professional and personal. If you can show you have had a shared bank account for 10 years, have been spending time together or going on holiday together three times a year every year or I don’t know what, you will look like an established couple. But if all you can show is that you set up a joint bank account on 28.12.20 I doubt that that would be sufficient.
The trouble is now that the further we get from 31.12.20, the harder it it will be to justify a settled relationship that existed pre the end of transition and is still ongoing even though the two people have lived apart for years. Of course there will be cases where a couple has lived apart for a long time waiting for circumstances to change to them to resume their joint life but I imagine that the prefecture will look at these applications very carefully.
But if you think you have a case, you can apply for a CDS for your boyfriend under the WA, which I believe involves him applying for a visa to enter France and then submitting an application to the prefecture. Until the application has been approved he cannot claim any special rights to enter or stay in France.
In any case, this relationship that is provided for under the WA is not the same as concubinage because concubinage means living together and the whole point of the WA provision is that you are not living together, one partner is living in the EU and the other partner is not.
In Mary’s situationn unless she holds a permanent CdS I do not see how she can claim concubinage. Her BF cannot safely claim to be living in France with her because he does not have the right to live in France. On an initial five year CdS she cannot safely claim to have been living in the UK with her BF because if she says she has spent two months outside of France she will invalidate her own residency rights.
I think you will have to do what a lot of people are doing and wait until the situation improves. This is not a good time to travel for fun.
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Sandcastle very nice explanation.
It may be that since Covid has prevailed pretty much constantly since Brexit (or constantly enough to make it difficult for couples living separately to be able to plan to move their situation closer to concubinage if that’s as far as they want to go, due to the destruction of jobs in many industries in this period and the restrictions on movement) this could be helpful in explaining a lack of concubinage evidence since 31Dec2020 so far.
What is the thing you mentioned about 2 months and 5 years? For some reason I had 183 days absence from France as a thing to avoid.
I do not quite follow.
If you are talking about claiming rights under the WA what is required is not evidence of concubinage but evidence of a relationship that existed pre Brexit. By definition you will not have been living together in most cases, it is not expected that you have.
Simply the amount of time you are permitted to spend outside of France without losing residence rights. For the first five years of residence your absences are more limited, normally 2 months per year in total except where there are good reasons. After five years of residence you are permitted to be absent for up to 5 years consecutive without affecting your residence rights. This obviously does not apply to cross border workers who live in France but work in the UK,
As far as I know 183 days has no relevance to residency rights. In terms of taxation it could be one factor out of the many that can be taken into account when there is some doubt over where a person is fiscally resident, but apart from that it rings no bells with me.
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Ta Sandcastle.
I think it’s 6 months for WARP card holders? Another special concession, like 5 years rather than 2 once you have a permanent card.
Ah I expect you are right. I must have been confusing it with the two years. I knew there was a difference after 5 years residence…
Concubinage literally means that you share a room and a bed, the whole point of its being recognised is that there is no paper proof of a relationship - for concubinage to be recognised you do have to live together, that is the only criterion. If you don’t you aren’t concubins, stricto sensu.
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Yes that is what I was trying to say.
Whereas to claim rights under the WA you are not expected to concube but you do have to prove you were in a relationship before the end of transition.
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perfectly put.
But for how much longer?