'This is Brexit' - family gets 30 days to leave France

The Irish state pension is a lot higher than the UK but obviously needs to be.
My dad lives in the UK now and benefits greatly from his Irish pension.

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You are correct, but then most other european pensions are higher than the pittance offered in England. I dont blame him leaving, a lot of people are leaving Ireland because the degree of poverty amongst hard working people is forcing them to do so due to the taxation and other nuances. Fair play to the man.

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@Thomas - Where do you get your facts? I googled Ireland Migration and found https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2018/

Notably

  • Net inward migration for Ireland in 2018 of 34,000, the highest level of net inward migration since 2008
  • Irish nationals experienced net inward migration for the first time since 2009

Do you have a source for your claim?

Nope other than i lived there for numerous years and saw it happen. If you rely on the CSO figures then you are lost. Falsified to the hilt like most of the figures the irish governent publish to give the impression Ireland is great when it is in fact on its arse again. Yes the net immigration may be high (non EU) but they are not irish nationals coming back. Irish nationals +100 compared to 2007 !!! I hope that is sufficient for you.

So I watched this video the day it came out on facebook before the Connexion picked it up. I felt sympathy for her, we’ve all been there at some point banging our heads against french bureaucracy. My ears did prick up however when she said she received no CAF for the children. This family is not in the system after 2 years living here, do they actually have health insurance? A drop off no deal Brexit is unlikely to happen and even after a deal has been done there will be 2 years of current rights continuing there is no reason for her to leave
 Under current rules as an EU citizen you have the right to live anywhere in Europe even without a job, you sign on if you don’t have employment. Hopefully a kindly expat will furnish them with info that they have register for tax even if they have no income, join the health system for me it was CPAM, and demand CAF for the children. Even if they haven’t yet bought a property they must be renting somewhere and paying bills so they have some history of residency. It seems to me that they are still in ‘holiday’ mode and will get round to ‘stuff’ eventually, unfortunately as most of us know real life in France rural or city comes with administration and if you don’t cross the T’s and dot the i’s in duplicate it will come back to bite you in the arse. I think many of us have had the rant but we haven’t aired it on Facebook.

That’s misleading because it makes it sound as if you can move to another EU country without any work lined up and without being self supporting, and immediately sign on and get benefits. You can’t. There are special rules for jobseekers, basically if you’re receiving unemployment benefit in one country then you can transfer this to another country for a limited period, could be 2 months, and if you haven’t found work at the end of that period you have to return to the country that’s paying your benefit. As a jobseeker in a country where you’ve never worked, you don’t have the right to live there and you don’t have the right to benefits.

As said before, I am sorry for this family but I find it hard to have sympathy with anyone who either doesn’t bother to find out the rules or doesn’t bother to comply with them, and then goes off on a rant blaming everyone other than themselves when they come unstuck. It’s not rocket science, the rules are not that complicated and they are easy enough to find out, specially since RIFT have done such an excellent job of explaining things in English.

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This one has always confused me a bit - you describe the situation as I understand it.

In which case what was Cameron’s “concession” regarding benefits all about? I’ve been meaning to look up the relevant details but as it has come up here perhaps you have a better grip on this than I do.

When I first came to France in 2007 I signed on with ANPE, the predecessor to PĂŽle emploi. I was looking for work but not trying (or entitled) to claim benefits as my partner had an income and I had savings from the UK. As a job seeker though, I was offered lots of practical help to find work and was eligible for a free French language course which I did for 3 months.

After a few years (!) I did find some part-time work for the summer season and started to pay social charges. In the winter I was able to claim the equivalent of job seekers allowance or l’ARE (Allocation d’aide au Retour à l’Emploi) which was calculated as a percentage of my recent earnings and was time-limited, so 7 months working meant 7 months of benefit.

In the UK it’s not the same. The UK chose not to apply these rules and allowed benefits to be paid without people having to pay in. THE EU IS NOT TO BLAME FOR THIS despite what idiot Brexiteers think.

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When I arrived here, I’d always thought of (still) working for myself; a chap offered me part-time work, initially for 6 months; then a further 6 months, after which time I became an artisan & the rest is now (thankfully) history.
I found that for the most part, it helps to know the answer before you ask the question. In my experience, no-one “voluntarily” gives the information you need
at least, not at first.
This might just be MY experience
also, I’m aware that it very much depends upon who you actually speak to on the day.

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 and their avis d’impots apparently indicated that their income was below the required amount for EU citizens. Freedom of movement does not equate to legal residency.

FTFY

This actually runs deep into the problem with Brexit - much which was simply not the fault of the EU (NHS, schools, housing stock) was twisted into the Leave rhetoric and presented as a reason that the EU was “harming” us - given that the failure lay mostly at the feet of the UK government’s lack of infrastructure investment for the past 40 years leaving the EU is unlikely to fix it.

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We have rights and privileges, and with those rights and privileges, we have responsibilities to be compliant with our host country’s laws. If you stay beyond three months, there is an earnings requirement, and that requirement predated Brexit. To blame this on Brexit because some people just didn’t know it or didn’t care to know it doesn’t make it true. I am amazed by so many responses on different boards suggesting and/or condoning this behaviour. I do have sympathy for Emma and her family, and I am hoping that she is able to work it out. She and her husband truly want to make a life here in France for themselves and their children.

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Or to put it another way - exercising freedom of movement correctly, ie as per the EU directive which is what national laws are based on, does equate to legal residence. What doesn’t equate to legal residence is ignoring the directive and thinking that freedom of movement means carte blanche to live where you like with no conditions attached,

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What about all the holiday home owners who stay longer than three months? Are they breaking the EU law? Or is that different. Not being antagonistic but would really like to know. Maybe when we exported ourselves over here in 2006 things were very different, it seems a lot less complicated!? We got on with it and made good our decision. It took us over 10 years of graft with help financially from the French state and wonderful healthcare that caught my breast cancer early, to make our home here. I am not condoning anyone breaking the law, I pay for these people who decide they are going to fly under the radar in France and the UK, we are undercut business wise etc It just seemed a lot simpler before Brexit - if you paid your way and filed your taxes you were legal if you didn’t then you weren’t. I do not condone this! Yes I do hope all the ones who are illegal get found out and asked to leave. I also hope that Brits who genuinely want to stay and are legal are able to also.

Many of us know Brits who live under the radar or don’t abide by the rules, personally I just don’t care what others do as long as they don’t bother me, they’ll probably get caught eventually or end up back in the UK.

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Failing to comply with rules like this isn’t exactly breaking the law. It’s more a case of, the directive sets out the balance of rights and obligations when it comes to freedom of movement and residence rights; so if you want the rights and privileges, you have to meet the obligations. However, holiday home owners don’t actually want the rights - they don’t want healthcare, they’re not moving here - so if they don’t meet the obligations you could say it makes no odds. France has always tolerated this.

Under EU law, citizens have the automatic right to stay in another EU country for up to 3 months, and this is reflected in French law:
" Si vous ĂȘtes europĂ©en, vous pouvez circuler et sĂ©journer librement pendant une pĂ©riode de 3 mois en France. Vous pouvez ĂȘtre accompagnĂ© par les membres de votre famille proche. Ce droit de libre circulation et de sĂ©jour jusqu’à 3 mois vous est reconnu quel que soit le motif de votre sĂ©jour : tourisme, stage, emploi de courte durĂ©e, etc. Il peut toutefois ĂȘtre limitĂ©."
There is no law that gives them the automatic right to stay for longer.

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Thanks for taking the time to answer, Anna. After Brexit, if you aren’t European then I suppose the directive for third Country nationals will apply? I feel for the folk who have holiday homes but won’t be able to visit them when they like - is that true?

They will be able to visit for up to 90 days in 180. So can’t arrive at easter and leave at the end of summer in October. And that applies to the whole Schengen area, so if they take weeks here and there to go skiing, city breaks etc etc that will all be part of the 90 days.

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Is there a ‘long stay’ visa for the Schengen area to get round this?

Yes, but there are hoops to jump through.