Category: Dealing with government

Dealing with government, Life in France

Vote

When you get a letter that starts out with “It has come to our attention….” it gives you one of those “uh-oh” moments. In this case it was from the Orange County Florida Board of Elections where we are registered to vote. It went on to say that the address we had given them was a business and that in order to vote they would need our residential address. During the first few years that we lived in France, Bill’s sister (thank you, Cheryl) was nice enough to keep track of our postal mail until we could arrange for a mail forwarding service. Once that was in place with our new address we moved our voter registration to Orange County, received our ID cards, and prepared to participate in the next election…until this letter arrived.

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Dealing with government

Where there’s a will

Both of us have a Last Will and Testament on file back in the US where they were drawn up by an attorney familiar with those types of documents. They would be legal in France, although the practicality of executing them here might be challenging. For one thing, they are written in English and while we have copies with us that could be officially translated, they still might need authenticating back through the county clerk’s office where they are on file. To make things easier for one of us (or if we’re both gone, someone else entirely) in the future, we decided to visit a notaire and have him create a Testament for each of us. After all, we live in France and any assets that are left will be donated to a charity here in town so it just made sense, but where would we start?

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Unknown's avatarBob17 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

The patient patient

When we were investigating making a permanent move to France we read a lot about the experiences of others and two themes emerged. Everyone seemed to agree that the French love their paperwork. We’d had an inkling of that when we saw that to apply for our initial 1-year visa we would need to supply at least a dozen different documents (that list is here) to prove that we would be able to financially support ourselves during the validity of the visa. That process, with the paperwork, was repeated here as well each time we went in to renew our visa/residence card. It still makes me laugh to remember apologizing to our bank counselor for not speaking very good French when we opened our bank account. She looked at the pile of documents we had brought in for that application process and said with a grin while pointing to the stack, “Au contraire, you speak very good French!” We had our own experience recently at the hospital regarding that second theme: patience.

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Dealing with government, Life in France

Applying for citizenship

Home in France for 5 years

Now that we’ve lived in France in a “habitual and continuous manner for five years” it’s possible to apply for citizenship. That time requirement can vary, for example, if you got your university degree here, or have a French sibling, spouse, or parent/grandparent/great grandparent but in my case it will be a Demande de naturalisation par décret (Request for naturalization by decree). That just means that I have to be integrated into the community, have a sufficient knowledge of the language, history, culture and society, as well as the rights and duties conferred by French nationality and adhere to the principles and values of the Republic. Whew, sounds like a tall order so I’d better get started!

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Dealing with government, Life in France

Five to ten

From the Service Public website

Although today’s blog post title sounds like a prison sentence it’s far from it; in fact, just the opposite. It refers to the ability to apply for a 10-year residence card after having lived in France for five years. We reached that milestone at the end of February and now we are holders of a Carte de résident de longue durée-UE or something similar in the US might be called a “green card”. Our French one is blue but no less significant. Previously we needed to renew our card annually to stay here legally but now we’re set for the next decade. So besides not having to pay a renewal fee of 269 € every year, what are the other advantages?

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Unknown's avatarBob11 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

Get the notary on the line

Le Bugue
Le Bugue

In the 2008 movie Mamma Mia!, hotel owner Donna Sheridan comments that her soon-to-be son-in-law will be publicizing her Villa Donna to the world by putting her “on the line.” She claims to be current with the new technology of “the Internets” wondering why no one has invented a machine that makes the beds. We had a similar thought recently regarding those “Internets” when we had to have several documents notarized for use back in the US. Given that a notarial act must generally be conducted within the state where the notary holds a commission, it was going to be a challenge with the Atlantic ocean between us and travel heavily restricted. Time for an “on the line” search for a solution.

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Unknown's avatarBob5 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

Read my lips

Bill models one of the masks he made for us

And we were doing so well. Long before we had any plans of living in France we were watching French movies with the English subtitles turned on so that we could understand what was being said. That was a compromise since the real reason we were renting these films was for the scenery, be it the Eiffel Tower, Medieval castles, or fields of lavender in full bloom; all were really just inspiration for our next vacation. It’s a challenge, however, to read the dialog and try to take in all of the beautiful landscapes sharing the same screen. Then we moved here with access to 100 TV channels broadcast in French with only a few offering some programs subtitled in English but all having the option of displaying the spoken text on the screen for the deaf or hard of hearing. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em so that became our next step in comprehending what was going on. At least we could match up the words we were hearing with those across the bottom of the screen. Continue reading “Read my lips”

Unknown's avatarBob7 Comments