Yes Angela, All down to the education system and "creating an easy to control society" - they'd be dangerous if they started asking "why" and thinking for themselves - the french state went laïc but had to replace god with something to put the fear of god into the french so they'd do what they're told... hence the modern day "c'est come ça, ça a toujours été come ça et ça changera jamais" mind set!
you should try getting them to think for themselves at uni... :-O
and chinese students are even worse, yes it's possible!
Yes, impossible. My response to this was always to say, "well, I don't think it's impossible, for all these reasons", and then proceed to try and explain my view, giving examples using logic and reasoned argument. Of course, this never got anywhere, often met with indifference, or a super-infuriating smile, which meant, "You can say all theses things, and I know that according to reason they may all have a grain of truth, but the thing is, when I say "impossible" I am expressing a far more profound situation than just practical difficulties or administrative hurdles, I am expressing the fear that if people just started doing things or trying to do things because they reckoned there was a good chance of success, or even just for the sake of having a punt, something very very scary would happen. I'm not sure exactly what, but I know it will be bad." So my highly developed reasoning and problem solving skills, honed by years of experience and education, which had always stood me in such good stead, were of very little use. A hard lesson indeed.
I wish someone had told me that the French, by and large, and especially the Bureaucrats, by and large, have a lack of a "just get on with it" attitude and are too willing to accept, unquestioningly,that such-and-such is "impossible". This may be to do with the educational system?? I think you've already said all of this far more eloquently, but thought I'd add my 2 centimes.
When my husband set up as AE, we visited various professionals and all of them recommended different regimes. It is certainly true that the accountant recommended more complex regimes that would be more profitable for him.
Like everything else, here or UK, take your time, gather as much information as possible (from creditable sources not on forums) then make your own decision because in France, your personal/family circumstances make everything different.
Thanks for the info. I will be interested what our comptable has to say as this is the first proper appointment with a new one. The last one cost us a lot of money as we ended up paying TVA instead of getting a refund, amongst other errors.
Perhaps our comptable told us wrongly. We have an appointment next week, so I will let you know how we get on. Is it not correct that your contributions to retraite are also affected under AE?
Those working outside the law seem very very rarely to have action taken against them. A recent serious case that was highlighted in the papers has not resulted in any action so far, despite not only ripping off the client for 160k, they are now homeless due to the structure of the house being dangerous. Another who is on the sex offenders register in the UK and absconded and working here, despite the gendarmes being informed by UK police, again no action has been taken yet.
Yes you have hit the clou on the tete Catharine - I do get along better with French women who have travelled/are not from around here - I dont know whether they are lesbian or not ....
I do think too that a lot of the points raise in the last couple of posts by Janet and Emily about French women are very true of rural French society. I do now finally have French girlfriends but...they did not originate from round here / or they have traveled or they are lesbians. People who hail from big cities tend to have a far more open and Anglo Saxon approach to life.......
I tell what is REALLY infuriating. In order to be an independent estate agent, to put together buyer and seller and claim honoraires, you need a Carte Professionelle. If you are a agent commercial (as opposed to salarie) you can work 100 years in the business, and will still NOT qualify for the CP. If you are a salarie on the VRP (advanced commission) basis, you do NOT qualify for the CP. You can ask for one if you have a degree in Law or Finance related things but NOT if they relate to non-French law or Finance. If you have a non-relevant degree (i.e. something not French) you have to work for TEN years as a salarie before you qualify. But, guess what, a wet behind the ears newbie who has just crawled out of lycee with no experience whatsoever, but a BTS immobilier in their wet sticky little mits, can ask and be granted one immediately.
I dont understand why your house will never belong to you - what does the marriage contract have to do with it?
I do appreciate the serious side of the French which means that the teenagers arent on the street drinking and getting pregnant. I love the way that they respect their heritage and keep their villages and land clean and orderly. I appreciate their manners and their helpfulness. Where I start to diverge is on the level of ambition; freedom to create and develop businesses. The French people I know live their lives on a local scale - they dont think big, if they have dreams, they dont share them. On the other hand, they are not materialistic in the way that we Brits can be. They are happy with what they have. The women I work with get up extra early in order to do housework before they come to do their 9 - 7 stint at the office. As a result, their homes are clean and sparkling. As a result I am ashamed to invite them to mine.
You are right - activities are not necessarily fun. I actually know very few women who have the time for activities. On the other hand, men seem to have loads. When I ask the people I work with what they did at the weekend, the women inevitably spend it doing the chores and shopping. They dont do anything for them - no-one writes, knits, crochets, makes clothes, paints, pots, or does outside activities. French women work incredibly hard and their support structure is the family. I miss the cosy girly get togethers which I had in the UK. I am not serious and suspect I never will be. I like my French colleagues but will never have enough in common with them to love them and it is not a question of language - I am fluent. I think it is basically down to culture. We are different. The things that make the Brits terrible are also the things which make us great - our ambition, our vision, our rebelliousness against authority. Brits see outside of their personal and physical boundaries. We desire and are driven by this desire.
Vic is a carpenter and he frequently has to sort out other peoples bodge jobs. We too have a mixture of clients including the Conseil Generale!
You should see the electrics in our house, I'll try and post a picture if I can, and they were done by the EDF.
What we have noticed is that the majority of our British clients are second home owners as opposed to residents. Ohh, have to dash, first clients of the day just come in the cave!
I agree money is tight everywhere and we have kept our prices low. He is an electrician and most of his work is on recommendation with around 70% French clients now, which I am pleased with.
People seem to put on a different head when they come over here and don't think sometimes before they part with their money. I probably get too emotional with it all, especially when it has been left a fire risk or dangerous for the client and the fact that they pay out twice. I am sure you know some horror stories too. What does your husband do?
we started Salsa and it was SERIOUS. What really put me off is the fact that there is no social side to it - not even any water on tap - also people have ghastly breath and are sweaty. We have been a few times now but frankly, I cant say I enjoy it. It also is a huge effort to do a day's work, come home, flake out for half an hour and then have to go out in the cold and dark.
As regards the French, they are OBSESSED with double glazing. And not going upstairs once they hit 50. The putains d'Anglais actually do up houses beautifully. We dont have open wires with bulbs hanging down from the ceilings. We dont put in nastly plastic windows in beautiful old manor houses. We have a range of paints that extends beyond brown and dark green. We treasure old things and want to retain the patrimoine. We dont put crepi on interior walls. We do not think electric gates are the genoux d'abeilles.
Yes, a mariage of the best of British and French really would be something. Unfortunately when it comes to attitude, there is a huge disparity between the two cultures.
I honestly don't think it is AE's that are causing the problem, it is the fact that money is so tight everywhere. There are also lots of legitimate SARL's doing work they are not insured for along with people still working on the black etc.
We can not afford to drop our prices, if we did my husband would be better off employed. If people query the price then they are welcome to go elsewhere and risk everything that that entails, properly registered and insured folks can't do the work without earning a living. What does your husband do?
In fact we are considering it, we are just in the process of getting all the accounts up to date so we can go to the C de Metiers and a comptable to find out what is the best way to go.
When we change the van it will be best to change but at the moment we can't afford to change the van anyway.
If you do the sums, basically take 22% from the allowable turnover, you are left with an annual income of 25,000€. Take of the insurances for the decennial, liability, tools and vehicule, you are down to about 22,000, divide that by 12 and you have a monthly income of 1800€. Pretty good for a salaried worker, unfortunately when you take out all the costs of tools, getting to and from the various jobs and the costs of running your business, such as advertising, websites etc it leaves you on about the equivalent of the SMIC. Which is the general idea in a nice socialist country like France.
Like others, we are self employed to do what we enjoy as opposed to earning a fortune, however, it would be nice to earn just a little bit more considering the hours we put in:-)
Will post on here when we eventually get round to making the decision (on a new thread!)
There are some professions that it suits perfectly but I am against those that should not be AE in the first place.
As a REEL Simplifie he pays 47% on net profit per year. An AE is only designed to last, I believe, 3 years, after which time they have to decide on an alternative. You get health cover (which a lot of people use it for) and like Tracy says you pay on turnover. I have not researched it myself too thoroughly because I know his skill is not allowed under AE.
Many AE's register as a general odd job person shall we say and then do something totally different. They get the client to buy the materials from his wholesaler then do major work.Of course their decennale (which a high percentage seem to work without!) would not be valid if anything went wrong, but has anyone heard of someone getting paid out from one?
It gets very frustrating when you pay huge cotisations and work very hard to earn very little. However, we accept it because we do not want to live anywhere else as we love our friends and neighbours.
My husband hasn't stopped working, he is working 6-7 days every week without a holiday, but our profit margin has dropped considerably because we have to compete with AE's who do "other jobs" than those they are supposed to be doing. In his profession you cannot be an AE but that doesn't stop people doing it. He then has to come in after they have messed up and do the job properly.