I want to move to France

[Martin Williams]

Hi

I am fast aprroaching 40, I have a wife of 19 years of a similar age i have a daughter of 10 and a son of 9 months. We have been to france several times on holiday and love it. We are fed up with the doom and gloom at home and the bad weather and would love to live abroad. I currently work as a civil servant but for the last two years have been doing hairdressing at college and getting some additional training from Toni & Guy. The intention being to have some skill to take with me if i moved abroad. I have now qualified and work one day a week in Toni & Guy still as a trainee cutter as you have to learn their way even if you are qualified. I would like to do this full time but i can not aford to give up my other job.Our French is extremely poor just enough to scrape by. We currently have our property up for sale but nothing is moving due to the credit crunch. I was just wondering what our the chances of getting a job in a salon where i still need some guidance and i can not speak french? Or are there any english speaking salons out there?If not is there any chance of getting any type of work when you can not speak french, within the expat community may be. I am very willing to learn on the job. Can anyone help?

[giantpanda]

Hi!

Many people recommend not to come to France before having a fixed job - not something provisional.
Even with a qualification it is difficult to a job.

And starting your own business is rather a risky matter because the Social Insurance charges are not basically proportion to you turnover ( in the case of low turnover ).

If you have worked in GB, you would be able to get an E106, and you would be covered 2 years for the Health Insurance, but after that if you have no permanent job, you would have to show a private Health Insurance, which is rather costly because it has to be paid for each person.

In all cases you would have to see that your French knowledge very much improves.

Yours,

pomhorn

[Bevdeforges]

OK, given that you're coming from the UK, at least you don't have to worry about visas and all. But, without speaking the language you will be at a huge disadvantage in the job market.

There are a few salons (well, one I know of anyhow) in Paris that advertise their bi-lingual staff to the expat communities. They have English and German speaking stylists. I believe the guy who owns the salon is German. But honestly, I'd hate to try and live on a hair cutter's wages in or around Paris. The English speaking gal there is (or used to be) an Irish gal, who I think is married to a French executive.

Best approach might be to start making some regular "vacation" trips to areas you are interested in and scope out the job market for yourself. You never know, you might get lucky and fall into a situation where a salon owner really wants to appeal to the expat market in the area. But I wouldn't sell the family home until you have a better feel for where you'll go and what exactly you'll do.
Cheers,
Bev

[Amelia Davies]

Hello Martin

I live here in the South of France in the heart of Provence, I understand where you are coming from when you say that you want to move for a better life for you and your family. You have to look at this on the positive side. You could sell your house and put the money from the sale in a high interest account in the UK, use the interest to help you rent a property until you decide if France is the place for you, and which area is going to be your new home. The £ is too low to change into Euros at the moment you would lose quite a lot of money if you transfered your equity.

Once you are here you will have to apply for a social security number so that you can work, you could look at doing some property management for people who let their homes to tourists, most of them are English speaking owners and tourist. There are classes run by the employment services, to help you to speak French, and they are free for people seeking work.

Here in Provence you could also work as a mobile hairdresser, there are a lot of English and Americans living in this area. You could advertise your services in quite a few ways, Toni & Guy have Salons here in Provence and people would be interested in your connection with this name. Free news papers, local notice boards in supermarkets and public places etc are a good place to advertise. Once you are here you could learn the language quickly by getting to know your neighbours and by joining in with local activities, and by doing some voluntary work. You could also make a start by accessing French word a day, you subscribe free of charge and you will receive an e mail daily with a new word which is put into a sentence, you can listen to it spoken for a good accent, this service is run by an American writer Kristin.Espinasse.

We had a dream, and we are now living that dream, we have been here for 5 years and would not return to the UK for anything. If you are prepared to work hard and to take on anything until you improve your language skills, you will succeed in your venture. Good luck, if you have any more questions I will do my best to answer them for you. Regards Amelia.

Originally Posted by Martin Williams

Hi

I am fast aprroaching 40, I have a wife of 19 years of a similar age i have a daughter of 10 and a son of 9 months. We have been to france several times on holiday and love it. We are fed up with the doom and gloom at home and the bad weather and would love to live abroad. I currently work as a civil servant but for the last two years have been doing hairdressing at college and getting some additional training from Toni & Guy. The intention being to have some skill to take with me if i moved abroad. I have now qualified and work one day a week in Toni & Guy still as a trainee cutter as you have to learn their way even if you are qualified. I would like to do this full time but i can not aford to give up my other job.Our French is extremely poor just enough to scrape by. We currently have our property up for sale but nothing is moving due to the credit crunch. I was just wondering what our the chances of getting a job in a salon where i still need some guidance and i can not speak french? Or are there any english speaking salons out there?If not is there any chance of getting any type of work when you can not speak french, within the expat community may be. I am very willing to learn on the job. Can anyone help?

[giantpanda]

Originally Posted by Amelia Davies

Here in Provence you could also work as a mobile hairdresser, .

Hi!
If you consider this, you would have to register as a " travailleur indépendant " -

Before you take such a " drastic step ", you shoul contact first the Chambre des Métiers, and get information on what this will imply a Social Security charges " Urssaf" - otherwie you may regret thatat idea.

Alternative would be to work only of the base of CESU ( chèque emploi universel )!

Le nouveau "Chèque emploi service universel" - Service-public.fr

Yours,

pomhorn

[flanny]

We have been offered the oppertunity to part exchange our UK hse with 2 couples! One is for sale for£150,000 this is for a small hse and bungalow! We would have around £60,000 left to live on! the second property wants£165,000 for a large hse and small gite pluse 2 barns pool! leaves us with £40,000! Would this be enough to live on if we grow our own food, we would like to start a cattery boarding. Also would consider gite managment to bring in a small income! First hse is in Normandy second is in Charente region.
Any help suggestions welcome?

[Bevdeforges]

Not to rain on your parade, but a cattery boarding may be a tough business to live off of in France. Most folks here either take their pets on vacation with them, or with cats particularly, leave them to fend for themselves outdoors while they are gone. You may have a tough time convincing folks to pay to have their cats taken care of while they are away.

The gite idea is probably more practical.

As to how long your nest egg will sustain you, it can depend on lots of factors. How's your french? How remote will you be in either location? Where are you going to get your customers from (for either business)? Easiest way to tell is to pull together a business plan with budgets - figure out what you can charge and how many customers you'll have to have to make what you need to live on.
Cheers,
Bev

[parsnips]

After 1/1/09 it will be much easier to set up as self-employed. The recently passed law to modernise the economy will reduce formalities to a couple of hours on the internet and tax and social contributions will no longer be demanded in advance but paid monthly on a % basis of earnings(if any).

[Deeana]

Parsnips, can you point me to a link where I can find out more about this new law?Thanks,
Deeana

Originally Posted by parsnips

After 1/1/09 it will be much easier to set up as self-employed. The recently passed law to modernise the economy will reduce formalities to a couple of hours on the internet and tax and social contributions will no longer be demanded in advance but paid monthly on a % basis of earnings(if any).

[Bevdeforges]

Yes, I'd be interested in seeing the new law, too. This past year, they have vastly simplified the cotisation process for company owners, simply by making all cotisations payable to a single agency.

But, for several of the payments, there is an "assumed minimum" salary - either a fixed amount (used to be 9000€ a year) or a percentage of the current sécu plafonde on which the contributions are based if your actual revenue falls short.
Cheers,
Bev