(no subject)

[flemmings]

I keep reading about these foreigners who live in Paris or live in France. 'A year in Provence'-- off we go, happy carefree, to our new house. No one ever tells you what the foreigners *do* so as to be able to live in France, let alone how they got a visa or whatever. I must assume they're all independently wealthy or working for a foreign firm, because I know living in Japan involves definitely being independently wealthy, working for a foreign firm, or teaching English.

Oh, forgot the obvious-- married to a French person.

Comments

[doire]

Just be a member of one of the EU states; I have the right to live and work in any of them.

The practicalities are not so simple. I think most lose a lot of money when they find it's not an extended holiday and that work is work the world over and harder in a foreign language.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I tried the EU route on the basis of my maternal grandparents having been born in France. No go. My mother would have had to register her marriage at the French consulate and have it inscribed in the family's own carnet. Of course she didn't, being a Canadian citizen by then. (Didn't know the french had the equivalent of Japanese family registers.) I gather it's somehow easier for the Irish-descended to get citizenship via grandparents, or was, because several friends have done it.

Granted work is work the world over, it helps to have French wine and bread, and not pale simulacra thereof, waiting for you at the end of the working day.

[doire]

You're considering it seriously? Then my answer that was a variation of "choose your parents carefully" wouldn't be of much help.

They (visa and immigration rules) all seems to be so petty and restrictive compared to when I was travelling. Visas were no problem compared with having an blatantly Irish name in the 70s.