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BREXIT

BREXIT: Did France really ‘protect’ its British residents, as Macron promised?

In February 2020, just after the UK finally left the EU, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote an open letter to the British people, telling those Britons living in France "we will protect you".

Published: 22 April 2021 11:29 CEST
BREXIT: Did France really 'protect' its British residents, as Macron promised?
French president Emmanuel Macron said Brits in France would be protected after Brexit. Photo: Ludovic Marin/AFP

But at that time, Brits living in France – many of whom had been here for many decades – faced the prospect of having to apply for the right to stay in France, leaving many extremely worried about whether they would be rejected and forced to leave the place they called home. There was also at that stage no system set up by which they could make those applications.

Fast forward 18 months and the Brexit transition period is over and processing of the residency applications of the between 200,000 and 300,000 Brits in France is well underway.

So did France walk the walk, as well as talk Macron’s talk, when it came to protecting Brits living here?

The challenge

France, unusually among EU countries, does not require EU citizens to register for residency, which meant that at the time of Brexit no-one knew exactly how many Brits were living in the country, where they all were or indeed how to get in touch with them.

Estimates were that there were between 200,000 and 300,000 Britons residing in France. That would mean a significant extra workload for France’s public administration to register and issue residency cards to them all.

In addition many of those, particularly retirees, were not registered in any French system such as the social security or health systems – many people simply used their European Health Insurance Cards when they needed healthcare. There were also a significant number of second-home owners who split their time roughly equally between France and the UK, who would now have to chose if they wanted to become an official resident in France.

The solution

The French Interior Ministry’s solution was twofold – they built an online platform specifically for Brits covered by the Withdrawal Agreement (ie those living here before December 31st, 2020) and they put in place a simplified application process, with significantly fewer documents required than the usual residency permit application for non-EU citizens such as Americans or Australians.

Those living here for more than five years only needed to provide ID, proof of their current address, proof that they had been living in France for more than five years and that they were in France before the end of the transition period. French authorities allowed a wide range of documents to be provided as proof such as bills, payslips or rental contracts.

READ ALSO This is how Brits apply for a residency card in France

For more recent arrivals more documentation was needed, proving their status as employed, self-employed, studying or retired or otherwise economically inactive or a family member of one of those groups.

For many the greatest worry had been around providing proof of resources, with many British pensioners fearing they would not have enough earnings to qualify for residency.

In the event, this was only required for people who have lived in France for less than five years and were not working or seeking work. France also lowered some of its standard levels of minimum income and agreed to take into account assets such as property owned outright.

READ ALSO How much money do I need to stay in France after Brexit?

So how are these systems working in reality?

It’s now eight months since applications opened, and three months until the final deadline to make an application (which was extended to September 30th from the original deadline of June 30th, 2021).

While plenty of Brits are still waiting for their application to be processed, many of those who have begun the process have been struck by its simplicity – particularly compared to most other French administration tasks.

Applicants make the application online and are generally then invited to their local préfecture to give fingerprints and have their ID checked. Most people who have been for an appointment have reported a quick 10-minute process of checking the file and taking fingerprints, a far cry from the grilling that many had feared.

Many were also struck by the friendless and helpfulness of préfecture staff, again in stark contrast to what many people had feared.

Any problems?

But let’s not claim that the process is without issues, this has been a massive administrative undertaking and some things have gone wrong.

From feedback so far, here are some of the common problems.

Waiting times – according to a survey conducted by citizens’ rights group Remain in France Together (RIFT) the average waiting time between applying and getting an appointment date at the préfecture was four months, but this varies widely between areas.

Applications are all submitted online but are then passed to the applicant’s local area préfecture for processing, and préfectures move at different speeds. Only Dordogne – with its large British population – has been given extra staff to process applications from Brits, in other areas these are being handled on top of the usual residency paperwork, so speed depends on the number of applications and how many staff there are to process them. You can find a more detailed area breakdown here.

Document requests – although the website requires comparatively few documents, some people reported being asked to bring a large dossier of paperwork, including tax returns for the past five years, to their appointment at the préfecture. In some cases it seemed that préfectures were using the standard email/letter wording for all residency applications, rather than the slimmed-down requirements for post-Brexit paperwork.

Appointment dates – some préfectures seemed flexible on appointment dates if applicants were unable to make the appointment offered, while others either said they could not be changed or advised people to make a new application. 

Translation fails – the application website is available in English or French, but some of the early translations on the English site caused some confusion, although this appears to have largely been corrected now.

Administrative complexities – the process is simple compared to a lot of other French bureaucratic tasks, but French bureaucracy is notoriously complicated and slow. Several applicants at the Préfecture de Police in Paris report being directed to the wrong section of the building, then told there was no record of their appointment.

It’s not over yet . . 

Brits in France have until September 30th 2021 to make the application (extended from June 30th). It’s likely that applications will speed up as the deadline approaches, which will be a test of whether the system can process the volumes of applications in time.

It also seems likely that those who applied early are those who had their paperwork in order so we may not have seen yet how well the system deals with people in more marginal situations, or those who don’t fit into a clear category. 

(And let’s not spoil it by mentioning the ongoing fiasco over driving licences – although that’s not entirely France’s fault).

Head to our Dealing with Brexit section to find more info on what you need to do if you are a Brit living in France.

Member comments

  1. The simple answer is no. What happened to all this don’t worry you will still be EU citizens that was banded about by MEP’s.

    1. Agree with the majority comments — after a nightmare last year pre withdrawal agreement, the titre de séjour was a breeze. Macron delivered.

  2. Not everyone has to have an appointment at the Préfecture. Here in 66 if you have a cds from 2018 onwards they use the photo and fingerprints from that. Our new cards just turned up in the post after Xmas.

  3. Yes.
    The application was easy and the process uneventful (not quick but that’s fine). I fully expected to be asked for more documents (as I didn’t have Carte Vitale yet at the moment of application) but that never actually happened.

  4. Your respondents have all been lucky. We live in the Gard, we applied in October and have still heard nothing. We originally had an appointment at the prefecture under the old system before Brexit was delayed and because it was delayed the prefecture cancelled our appointment and said we had to wait for the new procedure. We applied the first month the website opened and still nothing. So it is not all as easy or simple as you may think. It is a postcode lottery.

  5. Despite applying immediately the WARP applications went online, we have heard nothing further from our prefecture ( Carcassonne ).
    We already have 10 year CdS so it should be quite straightforward but they seem to be taking a scattergun approach ! For example the wife but not the husband of some friends was called for rdv although they applied at the same time.

  6. Eventually we found that the process worked well and was simple enough. Unfortunately, my wife subsequently lost her card card wallet including the carte de sejour. There does not appear to be a process for replacing Brexit CdeS as the prefecture (Lot) do not allow this using the regulat process for “duplicato”. I did send an email to [email protected] but so far have received no reply. I think that last resort will be to apply again including copies of the card receipt and explanation. So, we have gone from serene to full of anxiety again! If anyone reads this and has any useful advice, it will be very welcome…

  7. I was amazed at how quickly and smoothly my Carte de Séjour process went. I say amazed because before the special website that was set up specifically for British citizens here I tried for about a year to get a Carte de Séjour myself. (It wasn’t clear for a long time how the French would go about it so I decided to get in first). Cue multiple trips to Cergy Prefecture, queueing from 7am, 6am, even 3am (really). Each time with everything I’d been asked for, only to be told by the gormless bureaucrat at the Prefecture that I lacked a document. When I’d go home to check I’d often find out that she was mistaken (she had confused KBis with URSSAF status, for example). Once Cergy Prefecture turned me away because I had not photocopied the BLANK SIDE of my birth certificate. That’s how petty and pig-headed French Prefecture bureaucrats are. No wonder everyone hates them.
    So hats off to Macron, the website was simple and they dispensed with the more pointless documentation. The appointment took 5 minutes, I queued for 10 minutes instead of 6 hours and I got the card in the post after a week.

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BREXIT

‘I feel exiled’: How Brits in Europe are locked abroad with foreign partners

Britons and their European families are being divided or simply unable to move back to the UK because of strict income requirements, which are now set to rise steeply. Two British nationals in Europe tell The Local how the rules have impacted them.

Published: 6 April 2024 10:02 CEST
Updated: 9 April 2024 12:34 CEST
'I feel exiled': How Brits in Europe are locked abroad with foreign partners

Europe is home to hundreds of thousands of British nationals, many of whom have foreign partners and children. But if they want to move to the UK to live and work it will soon become more difficult.

When it comes to getting a partner visa, the UK has some of the strictest rules in Europe. In addition to hefty fees and a healthcare surcharge, the Home Office requires British citizens and long-term residents who bring their foreign partner to the UK to have a minimum income showing they can support them without relying on the social security system. 

The minimum income up until now was set at £18,600 (€21,700), or £22,400 (€26,100) if the couple had one child, plus another £2,400 (€2,800) for each other child. 

But these income requirements will rise steeply from April 11th 2024.

How it works: What Brits in Europe should know about UK’s new minimum income rules

From this date the minimum a British national or long-term resident will need to earn if they want to return home will increase to £29,000 (€33,800) and up to £38,000 (€44,313) by spring 2025, although there will no longer be an additional amount for accompanying children.

Alternatively, families need to prove they have at least £62,500 (€72,884) in cash, which from 11 April will increase to £88,500 (€103,207).

‘Family life has been destroyed’

To put this in context the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford suggests that around 50 percent of UK employees earn less than the £29,000 threshold and 70 percent less than £38,700. The Observatory also says that while the number of people affected by the policy is small compared to the overall UK immigration (family visas represent 5 percent of all entry visas), the impacts on concerned families can be “very significant”. 

The Migration Observatory notes that other European countries apply income thresholds to sponsor foreign partners. Spain, for instance, requires sponsors to have an annual income equal to the social security salary. In Denmark, sponsors must not have claimed social benefits in the three years before the application. But in Spain and the US, the partner’s foreign income also counts towards the threshold.

So what does this mean for mixed British and international families living in Europe who might want or even need to return to the UK to live?

Campaigners have complained that many Britons with foreign partners have simply been “locked abroad” or families have been separated while they try to meet the minimum income or savings requirement. 

Reunite Families UK, a non-profit organisation supporting people affected by the UK spouse visa rules, says this policy causes distress, especially for children. 

Some 65 percent of respondents in research carried out by the group said that their child received a diagnosis of a mental health condition due to the separation of their parents.

“Since its introduction, this policy has destroyed the family life of countless people and children,” Matteo Besana, Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at Reunite Families UK said.

“Women have been forced to become single parents to their children and live away from their partner and the father of their children only because they didn’t meet the threshold.

“As shown by our research on the mental health impact of the policy, these are scars that, particularly for children, will be carried for the rest of their lives,” Besana said. 

The people most likely to be affected are women, who tend to earn less or not work because they took on caring responsibilities. Also heavily impacted are people under 30 and over 50 years of age, people living outside London and the Southeast of England where wages are higher, and those belonging to specific ethnicities, according to the Migration Observatory. 

The Local spoke to two British women, in Italy and Sweden, struggling to return to the UK with their families because of these rules.

More savings needed

Sarah Douglas, who has been living in Italy since 2007, was planning to return to Scotland with her Italian husband and three children. 

“It was always our long-term goal to move back to the UK after we had our children and once we’d have saved enough to buy a home in the UK,” she said.

“In hindsight, we should have gone after the Brexit referendum, but in the beginning it wasn’t clear what the final deal would be and I naively assumed that situations like mine would be taken into account and we would have the right to return… Once it did become clear, we were in the middle of the pandemic and it wasn’t the time to move,” she said. 

Having stayed home to take care of the children, Sarah will find it hard to land a job near her family in Scotland that meets the minimum income required to sponsor a foreign partner for a UK visa. 

Her husband, a computer programmer, has been trying to get an employment visa, “but most of them state that you must already have permission to work in the UK,” Sarah says. And applying for British citizenship is not an option for a non-UK resident spouse. 

‘People need to be aware’

Sarah and her husband are trying to save as much as they can, an alternative to the income requirement, but the amount they need is rising to almost  £90,000, meaning it may be a long time before they have enough to move home.

While the aim of the UK’s policy is to ensure families moving to the UK are not a burden on the taxpayer, the reality is that people arriving on a family visa are not able to claim any benefits from the UK government. 

“They should judge the overall financial viability of the family unit, rather than just the earning potential of the sponsoring partner,” Sarah says. 

“We could live well with my husband’s salary and he could work remotely. We are stable and financially secure, but because I don’t earn any money, they say we are not able to support ourselves.”

Sarah says that most of the British public are unaware of the minimum income requirement.

“People think if you are married, your husband is allowed to come to the UK, but when I say no, it doesn’t work like that, they are really surprised. A lot of people are not aware of how this could affect them,” she said.

Looking for a job from abroad

Another British women who lives in Sweden with her South African husband and two children and plans to move to the UK told The Local how the minimum income requirement had put them in a “precarious and stressful situation”. 

The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous said: “After having the two children, I was very fortunate to find a research position and do my PhD, which is a salaried position in Scandinavia, and now that I finished, we are looking to leave. 

“But I need a job in the UK to sponsor my husband, and as a new graduate with limited work experience, it is not easy. It is even more difficult when you are not in the country and I missed out on opportunities because they wanted an immediate start. I really don’t want to move without my whole family,” she said. 

She says the UK’s policy is “gendered and geographically discriminatory” because it makes life harder for women and also harder for anyone who is planning to move to a part of the country that isn’t in London, where salaries are higher. 

“I feel exiled from my country and separated from my family there,” she said. 

Her husband, she argues, has his own company and could continue working remotely from the UK, earning well above the requirement. He would also pay taxes and national insurance while having to pay the healthcare surcharge, a form of double taxation, she argues. But that would not entitle him to a visa. 

“Our house is on the market now. We have booked removal companies for the 6th of June. The dog is booked for his transport. I just think this policy is so out of touch with the modern world,” she said. 

Reunite Families UK has called on the government to recognise the right for British or settled citizens to bring their close family members to the UK and scrap the minimum income requirement. Alternatively, the group says the rules should take into consideration the earning potential of both partners and consider “the best interests of children”. 

A petition on the UK parliament website asks the government to reconsider the minimum income policy. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, it will have to be debated in parliament.

This article has been produced by Europe Street news.

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