Immigrating to France (life, country, train, people)
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I've heard that France has some of the strictest immigration policies, if not the strictest, in Europe. Is that true?
I'd love to hear the experiences of anyone who has managed to legally immigrate to France.
Where are you from originally?
What made you decide to immigrate to France?
What is/was the legal process like?
Are the French people reasonably welcoming to immigrants?
How did you decide where in France to settle?
Are you happy you made the move?
Get a job with a company that has offices in Europe & see if you can transfer. Or marry a European. Very hard to immigrate without high education & skills
What do you plan to do there? Study? Work (your skills?) Retire?
Do you know French?
If possible, I'd love to work there. And, yes, maybe retire there. My current company has an office in France, but with Covid, there are no openings, and I don't know when there will be.
I'm a librarian by profession (also trained in PR), but I now work for a publishing company, and I'd like to stay in the publishing field.
Yes, I know French. Not fluently, but I have an excellent understanding of the language and intermediate level conversational/written skills. The desire to be completely bilingual is another reason I'd like to move there, and immersion is really the only way to achieve fluency.
I've heard that France has some of the strictest immigration policies, if not the strictest, in Europe. Is that true?
I'd love to hear the experiences of anyone who has managed to legally immigrate to France.
Where are you from originally?
What made you decide to immigrate to France?
What is/was the legal process like?
Are the French people reasonably welcoming to immigrants?
How did you decide where in France to settle?
Are you happy you made the move?
Thank you!
I immigrated to France a year ago.
I am from the US. My mom was born in France and I have dual citizenship.
I moved to France because I inherited the farm that my mother grew up on and where I spent some very memorable vacations and summers while growing up.
The legal process was easy for me because my mother is of French decent. I just had to show my mother’s proof of French citizenship, prove my identity, be of good character and show proof that I could support myself.
I had no issue with acceptance. ( I am a fluent French speaker, reader, and writer and know enough about French culture as to not embarrass myself... too badly.) Lol, I am even getting the facial expressions down.
I moved to the Provence region in the South of France. Avignon is the closest bigger city to where we live. As previously stated, I inherited the land.
Definitely glad I made the move. I think I found my forever home in France.
I immigrated to France a year ago.
I am from the US. My mom was born in France and I have dual citizenship.
I moved to France because I inherited the farm that my mother grew up on and where I spent some very memorable vacations and summers while growing up.
The legal process was easy for me because my mother is of French decent. I just had to show my mother’s proof of French citizenship, prove my identity, be of good character and show proof that I could support myself.
I had no issue with acceptance. ( I am a fluent French speaker, reader, and writer and know enough about French culture as to not embarrass myself... too badly.) Lol, I am even getting the facial expressions down.
I moved to the Provence region in the South of France. Avignon is the closest bigger city to where we live. As previously stated, I inherited the land.
Definitely glad I made the move. I think I found my forever home in France.
Thanks for writing all of that. I've read some of your descriptions of your country life in France (yet close to a bigger city), and it sounds lovely. Kinda the very thing I'm looking for.
What makes you feel that it's your forever home? I'm a bit of a gypsy, but I'd love to find my forever home. Is it the people? Is it aspects specific to your particular part of France? Do you feel there's a higher quality of life?
Also, you may not know this because your mom is a French citizen, so your immigration experience was somewhat different, but do you know if France DOES have very strict immigration policies compared to other EU countries?
We emigrated to France nearly four years ago, pre Brexit but post referendum, when the UK narrowly voted to leave the EU.
We are early retirees and had to prove our financial stability twice to the authorities, the first time when the UK was still part of the EU, and the second time when that permit (Carte de Sejour) was nullified by the UK then having left it.
We have no issues with the French authorities demanding that we meet with their financial concerns that we are not a burden on their system.
We have found the French authorities generally caring and accommodating and feel that they care more about us than the UK government. Brexit is causing certain issues, some of which have yet to be resolved, but that is not an issue for you.
We have American friends here in our village, who moved to France a year or so before us. They find the system fair, and are especially delighted with the French healthcare system!
We, as are they, are pleased to have made the move. I would not want to live anywhere else, especially back in the UK. We are fortunate as early retirees, and I think that you would have to listen to the experience of those working here to find how they view things.
Be prepared for seemingly endless bureaucracy, and remember- it's in French! Hopefully you will be fine.
Our experience is that the French are generally very welcoming. This includes our neighbours, new friends and acquaintances, officials, shopkeepers and others. Brexiters not so much generally speaking! Also they are not so keen on those that shun learning the language, and generally assimilating.
Not sure how we came to be where we are in SW France- things kind of evolved, but certainly no regrets.
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