my cynical (but none the less valid) view
I can do that, gee us a job.
It's difficult to know where to begin with this one. Firstly let me say, that the French government do not like to make things easy for anyone to work, especially if you want to be self employed, in actual fact, up until recently when things changed a little, I honestly believe their rules and regulations, actively discouraged it. That may seem a rather cynical view, but, having lived in England for the previous fifty years and having been self employed for quite a few of them, when we arrived in France, to do the same thing here, proved too complicated and too expensive to even contemplate.
Let me explain................
The French have a real love for paperwork and certification ,copies in duplicate and triplicate are the norm for everything, (deforestation of the planet, or what !) Anybody who intends to work here will find it very difficult, if they do not obtain the necessary certification beforehand. Now, I can understand that I would prefer to be operated on by a doctor who is qualified rather than my next door neighbour and that I would like a qualified plumber to install my gas central heating, but it's stretching it a bit far when employers want certificates before they take on waitresses or shop assistants. This believe it or not is the norm.
When we lived in England, I worked in my own pottery and know from experience that employing people can be, to say the least, a difficult business. The first hurdle my prospective employees had to jump over was that I needed them to be literate, if I left an instruction for example, I wanted them to understand it, after that, I ignored totally any certificates they held, and looked for honesty, integrity, but most of all an enthusiasm for what they wanted to do. Sorry to say, but that kind of recruitment process seems to be in short supply here in France. It worked well for me. It is small wonder that entrepreneurs who wish to start businesses here in France move to England and start them there !!
In 2000 when we arrived here it was illegal to work for yourself if you had not registered with the appropriate authorities beforehand. Firstly you have to find the relevant authority, which is not easy, as each trade has its own regulatory body situated somewhere in the country. As soon as you register, as you have to provide your bank details, the money starts disappearing from your account, and I mean a lot of it!!. This is of course before you have started working. There was an alternative to this for small businesses called " micro enterprise " which was a bit easier to follow, but still did not prevent the money disappearing from your bank at an alarming rate.
If you perhaps were a baby sitter, gardener or cleaner or similar and were self employed there was a system whereby your employer applied to their bank to issue them with a specially printed cheque book which they would pay you with, they of course had to provide their bank details to the state who in turn took money out of their account for the pleasure of having employed you and for your health and social security. You can only work up to eight hours max per week for any one employer. COMPLICATED OR WHAT ?
WAKE UP FRANCE GET A GRIP ON REALITY
However, a few years ago, when Mr Sarkozy was in charge, he introduced a new system that he called "Auto Entrepreneur". The unions were up in arms, as they could see their lucrative and extortionate hourly rates being eroded by people who lived in the real world, they still are up in arms and there are ministers in the government try to change things back to how they were. France is, if you didn't already know, rather resistant to change but the new system actually works quite well. Both I and my wife are auto entrepreneurs, I build and repair bicycles and my dearest teaches piano, singing and conducts two choirs here in deepest Dordogne. We still end up having to pay shed loads of dosh to the government, but that's what you get for living in such a beautiful place. The system exists to enable you to receive a " Carte Vitale" which allows you access to the French medical system, (more about that later), the "carte" exists to ensure that it is difficult to abuse said system.
I have just re-read what I have written and, I would agree with you that I am a cynical old git, why the hell do I keep living here? I suppose if I were french I would have been brought up with the way of life and all it's foibles, I would just accept it. Let's put it this way, it could be a great deal more straightforward, think of how many trees it would save!
Reasons to be cheerful. lovely weather, lovely house, lovely garden growing our own veg, lovely chickens (apart from one, who sits on eggs all the time) giving us lovely food, lovely clean river a five minute walk away, and I am grateful to the lovely doctors and nurses who have found and operated on my cancer (more about that later too).
Thanks by the way to all my readers in the USA. Germany and the Ukraine, hope you will tune in for the next episode at uncle Neils' and beyond. Which should follow, unless it doesn't.
The French have a real love for paperwork and certification ,copies in duplicate and triplicate are the norm for everything, (deforestation of the planet, or what !) Anybody who intends to work here will find it very difficult, if they do not obtain the necessary certification beforehand. Now, I can understand that I would prefer to be operated on by a doctor who is qualified rather than my next door neighbour and that I would like a qualified plumber to install my gas central heating, but it's stretching it a bit far when employers want certificates before they take on waitresses or shop assistants. This believe it or not is the norm.
When we lived in England, I worked in my own pottery and know from experience that employing people can be, to say the least, a difficult business. The first hurdle my prospective employees had to jump over was that I needed them to be literate, if I left an instruction for example, I wanted them to understand it, after that, I ignored totally any certificates they held, and looked for honesty, integrity, but most of all an enthusiasm for what they wanted to do. Sorry to say, but that kind of recruitment process seems to be in short supply here in France. It worked well for me. It is small wonder that entrepreneurs who wish to start businesses here in France move to England and start them there !!
In 2000 when we arrived here it was illegal to work for yourself if you had not registered with the appropriate authorities beforehand. Firstly you have to find the relevant authority, which is not easy, as each trade has its own regulatory body situated somewhere in the country. As soon as you register, as you have to provide your bank details, the money starts disappearing from your account, and I mean a lot of it!!. This is of course before you have started working. There was an alternative to this for small businesses called " micro enterprise " which was a bit easier to follow, but still did not prevent the money disappearing from your bank at an alarming rate.
If you perhaps were a baby sitter, gardener or cleaner or similar and were self employed there was a system whereby your employer applied to their bank to issue them with a specially printed cheque book which they would pay you with, they of course had to provide their bank details to the state who in turn took money out of their account for the pleasure of having employed you and for your health and social security. You can only work up to eight hours max per week for any one employer. COMPLICATED OR WHAT ?
WAKE UP FRANCE GET A GRIP ON REALITY
However, a few years ago, when Mr Sarkozy was in charge, he introduced a new system that he called "Auto Entrepreneur". The unions were up in arms, as they could see their lucrative and extortionate hourly rates being eroded by people who lived in the real world, they still are up in arms and there are ministers in the government try to change things back to how they were. France is, if you didn't already know, rather resistant to change but the new system actually works quite well. Both I and my wife are auto entrepreneurs, I build and repair bicycles and my dearest teaches piano, singing and conducts two choirs here in deepest Dordogne. We still end up having to pay shed loads of dosh to the government, but that's what you get for living in such a beautiful place. The system exists to enable you to receive a " Carte Vitale" which allows you access to the French medical system, (more about that later), the "carte" exists to ensure that it is difficult to abuse said system.
I have just re-read what I have written and, I would agree with you that I am a cynical old git, why the hell do I keep living here? I suppose if I were french I would have been brought up with the way of life and all it's foibles, I would just accept it. Let's put it this way, it could be a great deal more straightforward, think of how many trees it would save!
Reasons to be cheerful. lovely weather, lovely house, lovely garden growing our own veg, lovely chickens (apart from one, who sits on eggs all the time) giving us lovely food, lovely clean river a five minute walk away, and I am grateful to the lovely doctors and nurses who have found and operated on my cancer (more about that later too).
Thanks by the way to all my readers in the USA. Germany and the Ukraine, hope you will tune in for the next episode at uncle Neils' and beyond. Which should follow, unless it doesn't.
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