The joys of French bureaucracy

Blog
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I've discovered France has an amazing social system which considers that we should all have access to quality health care and a minimum of comfort in life. Some agree with this way of thinking, while others think that it encourages laziness. I'll try to avoid giving any particular judgment. I will however, share with you my own ups and downs or "deboires" with the system to help you avoid any problems i've encountered, and who knows - you might see the subject in a whole new way...


For me, work is a normal part of life - neccessary even! Unlike many French, I don't see it as a form of slavery for the rich. I think work can keep the mind sharp, provide a social life, a goal, and money. Unfortunately times are hard and at one point, I found myself unemployed and "living off the system". Well, that's not entirely true. You see - i was unemployed but also had jobs off and on during my whole unemployment. I WANTED to work, so when I found work that's what I did - WORK.


No one really asks how the system deals with people like me, but I'll tell you anyways. They deal with us POORLY.


If you are unemployed and don't work at all, you get a regular allowance from the Pole Emploi based on a percentage of what you made in your previous job. Normal enough, right? Well, if you are honest and tell them that you've worked at all - they deduct that salary from your monthly allowance and you need to send them a copy of your payslip to prove how many hours you worked and the amount you made.


It is possible to work part-time, or full-time on CDD and still receive unemployment. Special rules and limits apply, so be sure to get all the legal and financial details before considering this option.


If you work while unemployed you'll have to :



  1. send a copy of your payslips each month

  2. Make photocopies of said documents

  3. send the documents by the post


If you do not have access to free photocopies, enveloppes, and postage stamps, you will pay for this yourself. If for some reason they didn't receive or "find" those documents, they may deduct your previously paid allowance and threaten you with removing your unemployment rights entirely.This happened to me every 3 months or so.


An arrêt maladie complicates the life of unemployed individuals. If you send in the official sick leave /arrêt de travail papers and declare it to Pole Emploi, Pole Emploi will not pay you the number of days you were "sick". You may also find that Security Social won't pay you either. Unless - you bring in a COPY of the following documents :



  1. Notification de prise en charge of Pole Emploi

  2. All of your Pole Emploi avis de paiement mensuel /monthly payslips from registration day to present

  3. All your Pole Emploi payment summaries /récapitualatif d'indemnisation from day 1 to present

  4. The last 4 fiches de paie/payslips of your employeur previous to unemployment

  5. The certificat de travail of the same employeur given at the time of leaving

  6. All the payslips you've received since unemployment if you worked at any time.


If you have been unemployed for a while, and/or have had many jobs during your unemployment period, this task will be huge! Once again, you may have to pay for your own photocopies, envelopes, faxes, transportation etc to resolve this and finally receive your allowance.



I feel as though I have been punished for being truthful (having official contracts instead of being paid under the table "au black", and saying I was unavailable for health reasons after an accident.) It also makes me feel like I was punished for working, and passes the message that short-term contracts are not acceptable or have little value in today's society.


I'm quite upset about French bureaucracy right now -and I'm sure many of you understand. It's almost as though i've had to fight e-v-e-r-y inch of the way only to be slapped and told not to rock the boat and stay silently unemployed. I for one have been FIGHTING to get employed. I've even created many of these opportunities myself. Those small contracts help me network, increase my customer base, and can help me start a company one day..


Hopefully I'll survive all this French bureaucracy. And hopefully, so will you!


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Thank you Karen for the detailed information .

I have lived in the US and I have at least twice lost my full time employment, in the US you have to wait two weeks before you receive unemployment benefits, you must continue applying for jobs and fill a form with the name of the company where you applied and the name of the person you talked to and turn in that form weekly there must be at least 3 places you applied to per week, if you have been ill you will not receive full benefit ( some money will be deducted for the days you were ill) you only receive unemployment benefits for a certain length of time after that you receive no more money, the only difference with what you went through is that everything must be brought into the office in person, I lived 10 miles out of town, if copies were needed the office would make them. I am now retired and the method used back in those days may have changed.

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I feel for you Karen, it took us ages to get sorted out and we live in dread of somebody cancelling our claim and making us start all over again!

The final straw for me was when we were told to go back to the UK by somebody at the Conseil Generale. OH has been here for 23 years and paid some very hefty social charges in that time. We are only in this position because RSI will not sort out OH's pension. Needless to say I sent off an email to everybody I could think of (including the EU legal team, who wrote back to say that the treatment we have received is abusive). For once email worked. RSA claim was sorted within two days (although they had received the paperwork three months before) and a letter of apology from the Director of RSI. Of course we are still waiting for the pension!

Keep strong, I am sure that the right job will come up for you soon. :)

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Hello Karen, I feel less disconnected after reading your post, and am not at all surprised you feel cheated but I'm still very sorry to hear you're receiving the same treatment as me and millions of others.

It is definitely easier to be either fully unemployed or employed than to accept short term contracts. It's so unfair to people who need the experience, need to keep paying the bills whilst looking for regular work.

If you need time off for illness, I have found the pole emploi just stops your claim altogether, making you have to go through the whole inscription process all over again each time. My assistant sociale told me it's to keep the unemployment figures down. I also think it's a way of cheating the long term unemployed out of their rights to extra help for getting back to work, which you find you're only entitled to after a length of a year unbroken registration with the pole emploi. They will do anything to cut people from the lists and have tried cutting me off twice now, for not turning up to an "interview" that they didn't actually tell me about.

apparently the pole emploi have a suicide rate amongst their own workforce that is only surpassed by France telecom and Renault.

I don't know how far you are from a large bibliotheque, but ours in Poitiers..the Mediatheque Francois Mitterand, has a photocopying machine that is cheaper than elsewhere, plus, if you use a memory stick and do it via their computers, you are allowed to print out one copy of each file for free...so if you scan all your documents and save them in separate files you can get quite a lot of stuff done for free.

Also, I have found a contact at the pole emploi, who accepts some documents by email...I am trying to hold on to her like gold dust!!!!

Charmain, the system the pole emploi uses has been like this for far longer than the recent government and there are lots of articles in Le Monde and Le Figaro etc... that speak of the rapid increase in unfairness towards the unemployed and excessive beaurocracy during the Sarkozy government. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that the socialists have been successfull in reversing the trend. Considering that the people who make the rules are civil servants, not politicians, & areexactly the same as they were 10 or 20 years ago, it's not surprising.

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Seems if the powers that be make it so complicated you won't bother thereby saving themselves time, effort and most of all money. So much for socialism.....

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Brilliant post Karen - thank you. I have another friend who is going through all this right now and it is a flipping nightmare.