Do you know if the French State or other National organisations, NGO’s or charities offer residents of France free or partly funded training courses in order to help them integrate or find work in the country? I am thinking of any course really, nursing, cooking, computer skills (excel, access), French language for foreigners. Perhaps there are schemes to provide training for minority groups I.e. Non- whites, or foreigners, women, single mothers with children, etc. When I worked in the UK I used to get lots of low cost courses at my work place because our factory was in a deprived area through the ‘train to gain’ scheme. Wondering if France has a similar thing in place?
There are things in place but AFAIK nothing as general as you seem to be looking for.
France is very big on workplace training, every employee (or self employed person) has an annual training entitlement funded from a government ‘pot’ that their employers / themselves pay into, but in order to be eligible for training on this programme you need to be in work in the first place.
The Pôle Emploi would have information on any training or reskilling initiatives that may be run from time to time for jobseekers. I suspect most schemes would be regional rather than national, depending on the needs of the local economy.
All non-EU immigrants are obliged to attend language and integration classes arranged by OFII as part of the procedure to be entitled to their carte de séjour.
I’m not sure how much of a need there would be for these courses to be honest because kids who have been educated in France will normally be equipped with basic workplace skills and some works experience before they leave full-time education. The French education system is much more closely linked to the workplace than the UK system is, kids choose their Bac according to what career they have in mind and they don’t tend to leave school with a few irrelevant certificates and no idea what to do next, as may happen in the UK. Nor would the courses be aimed at non EU immigrants because non EU citizens are not allowed come to France to look for work. In order to get a work visa they need to be sponsored by an employer and have a job contract signed before they arrive, and without a work visa nobody can employ them.
Thanks. I am working in Monaco rather than France so don’t get any of the training benefits you mentioned. It was more my wife I was thinking of as maybe there were schemes to help.
Is she a registered jobseeker?
If your wife registers with Pole Emploi they will be able to direct her (if she asks!) to any training. There are certainly courses in French for foreigners. If she already has some skills/training it may be possible to get training to make her skills acceptable in France. A friend’s wife was already “officially” a hotel receptionist in Morocco. Not acceptable in France, she had to be trained in France, so Pole Emploi found her a course and sent her on it. It still wasn’t easy for her to get a job however.
No she is not a registered job seeker