[stevevoid]

Hi all
Im English and have been living and working in France for 10 years, I have my own business (sci plus I am auto entrepreneur). I have a French daughter. The question is this, my English girlfriend and her 9 year old daughter want to move here and live with me, we want to put her daughter into the local school. I keep getting contradicting information from the Mairie, Prefecture etc. How would we go about getting her daughter into the local school? What papers would her mother need? I spoke with the local headmistress and she said they would need autthorisation form from La mairie / carnet de santé/ livret de famille and certification de radiation de l ancien ecole but surely her mother would need to have a social security number etc. She doesnt intend working at present, so the usual way of getting on the system is not a possibility. Would school accept her without her mother being ¨on the system¨? Or as European citizen, will she have automatic rights to come live here and put her daughter into school? One possibility is marriage but even if we did that would that automatically give her the rights for social security / school etc
Any advise appreciated
Thanls

 

[Bevdeforges]

As a British citizen, your girlfriend still has the right to relocate to France on her own with her daughter under the usual EU rules. She should have little or no problem registering her daughter in school - though she'll need to get a carnet de santé (from a local doctor) and some indication of her "family status" (i.e. that she has the authority to have removed her daughter from the UK - permission of the girl's father, death certificate of the father or divorce papers granting her custody, that sort of thing). She doesn't need a sécu number, at least not for enrolling the daughter in school.

France doesn't recognize "de facto couples" - if you want to be responsible for her finances, you need to either get married or get PACSd. As an individual, she would need to have some form of health coverage (private) to cover at least the period up until she can apply for French sécu in her own name (probably a bit longer, just to cover the time it can take for all that to get sorted out). But to apply for PUMA coverage (based on residence) she would need some proof of her financial resources - prior years' tax documents or something similar.

If you get married or PACSd, she'd basically be "on" your sécu from the date of the contract (marriage or PACS) though getting this all processed and recognized could take a couple months or so. You could also put her on whatever mutuelle coverage you have (though you would have to pay for that).

But net, net, she should be able to register the child for school, no matter what.
Cheers,
Bev

 

[stevevoid]

Thanks Bev
Good advise thanks, after researching today, that seems to be the general idea. What is PUMA coverage? Ive read that children need to be insured at school too, can you foresee any problems with taking out an insurance policy for her child for school, without her mother having a Secu number? Longer term we intend to get married, if we did, would she have the same rights as I do in France despite the fact that Im not French? I suppose our immediate problem is short term, ie covering her mum for health care etc, Im guessing she could keep her Uk residency and rights for a while, whilst living in France hmmm
Thanks again

 

[Bevdeforges]

Don't overthink this - and if you're planning on staying together in France, don't try maintaining residency in two countries at the same time. Come Brexit time, it's possible that you'll have to show some minimum period of "valid residency" - you want to not cloud the picture. If she's resident in France, she's resident in France.

The safest thing (though not the least expensive option) might be to look into getting a private health insurance for the girlfriend and her daughter - perhaps for the first year they are in France. By that time, you should have figured out what you want to do about getting married or PACSd and she and the daughter will have their residency time in to start getting into the queue for enrolling in the sécu. (PUMA is the universal coverage part of the sécu - for those who aren't covered through paying cotisations through work.) The daughter will also need insurance for school - not health coverage, but a sort of "civil responsibility" coverage for anything she damages or other trouble kids tend to get into.
Cheers,
Bev

 

[softouch115]

Just to add to what Bev said, I had to get the insurance for my son when he went into public school and it was easy and inexpensive. I don't mind sharing that I pay under 20 E a month to insure both my apartment, and liability for my son. I can't recall if they asked for identification or verification at all.