France Rights news and updates

You probably remember that in May we launched a survey looking at how British residents in France are feeling about having to apply for a new residence status and carte de séjour. The French government tells us that it's still on target to open the new online application portal in July, though we still, as I write this on 23 June, don't know exactly when. Anticipating that opening, we wanted to steal a march on what the biggest concerns are, where potential issues might lie, and what kind of information support France Rights can best offer.




2727 of you responded during the 2 weeks the survey was open, making it not just a very interesting survey but also one that is statistically relevant - so a huge thanks go to everyone who took part.

We learned many things from the survey, but one thing stood out, and it's this ...



Many people are nervous about the application process to come Almost half of all respondents are nervous to a greater or lesser degree about the application …

While all eyes have, understandably, been on Covid-19 for weeks now, for us at France Rights and British in Europe it's been largely 'business as usual' on citizens' rights as we get closer to the roll out of the Withdrawal Agreement across the EU. What we thought was going to be a quiet time turned into quite the opposite - we've been busy taking stock of where things are at in the different countries and have just finished producing a comprehensive written evidence paper for the Committee on the Future Relationship with the EU (the former Brexit committee, to which we've given evidence before) on the progress of implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement in the various EU countries. As soon as this is published by the Committee and the embargo is lifted, we'll be sharing that with you all.

An important date


Here in France, we're preparing for an important date coming up in a couple of months time: in July the new online application scheme being set up…

Ever since we began providing information over 3 years ago, the most frequently asked question has been 'how do I apply for a carte de séjour', and our website pages on that subject have been consulted hundreds of thousands of times.





We're in a period of transition in more ways than one right now: the old system for applying for a carte de séjour is no more, but the new one isn't yet up and running. Every British citizen living in France will have to apply for a new residence status and a new carte de séjour under the Withdrawal Agreement, and there will be a new online application platform, though full details of the process haven't yet been made public by the French government. But everybody hates a vacuum, so in this article we bring you up to date with what we know so far about how things will work under the new system so that you can begin to prepare for what's to come. The information here is taken both from the text of the Withdrawal Agreement itself, an…

Dear France Rights friends and supporters

Several thousand of you signed up to receive our updates directly via email. Sadly, we've just learned that the internet gremlins have been at work and that Google has inadvertently deleted all the current subscribers to the France Rights blog ... and worse, that there's no way to recover them.





We'll be publishing many updates through the weeks and months to come as we do our best to help people get to grips with the Withdrawal Agreement and what it means for British people in France. To make sure you don't miss an update, could we ask you to resubscribe using the box at the bottom of this post? Your email address is safe with us and won't be used for any other purpose - and you'll find our privacy policy described here: https://www.francerights.info/p/our-privacy-policy.html.

Alternatively you can subscribe again by clicking the Subscribe/Souscrire box at the very top of this page.

Our sincere apologies for the mess - …

This is the first article (of a total of 6) in the January 2020 information campaign that we're running jointly with British in Europe, about the Withdrawal Agreement and how it affects you as a British citizen living in France or another EU country.

In this article we take a look at what the Withdrawal Agreement is (and what it isn’t), what it does, how it’s different from the no deal legislation that your host country will have produced, and who it covers.

The following articles will look specifically at

Residence rights and procedures;Health care, pensions and social security;Working rights, professional qualifications and family reunification;What's not covered by the WA;Frequently asked questions.



What is the Withdrawal Agreement? The Withdrawal Agreement is an international agreement between the EU and the UK that sets out how the UK’s EU membership will end. It covers the status and rights of both British citizens in the EU and EU nationals in the UK, the UK’s financial…

Today is a tough day for us. We know that people are shocked and angry and hurting, as we are ourselves after three and a half years of campaigning ... yesterday there was still a glimmer of hope that we might remain in the EU; today that's gone - it's a true Friday the 13th.

But while today is a time to hunker down and mourn, it's also for us a time to be pragmatic and look forward to what the results mean for British citizens in France and across the EU. And hard though it might be to accept right now, there is a bright side.

Always look on the bright side of life ... After last night's extraordinary landslide victory for the Tories, we can expect the Withdrawal Agreement to be passed in January. The Withdrawal Bill still has to go through Parliament, but with such a big majority it's hard to see how it could fail.

The citizens' rights chapter of the Withdrawal Agreement covers most of our current rights, with some exceptions such as continuing freedom of mov…

In the last article we looked at what the draft Withdrawal Agreement (WA) means for our ongoing rights as British citizens in Europe; in this one we home in on what we already know of how it would affect us in France.

This is, you'll notice a slightly shorter article. That's because we don't actually know very much yet! Like most of the other EU27 countries, the French Ministry of the Interior has, up until now, been focusing on procedures for implementing a no deal scenario and little focus has yet been given to how a Withdrawal Agreement would be implemented or what we would have to do to receive new residence cards under it. All the indications are that they won't begin that process until the UK government has voted the Withdrawal Agreement through.

We're in regular touch with the officials who head up the relevant team at the Ministry, and we also have regular calls with the citizens' rights team at the British Embassy in Paris, so you can rest assured that…

As I write this, opinion polls are strongly suggesting that there will be a Conservative majority in the upcoming election. If that happens, Boris Johnson will bring his Withdrawal Agreement back to Parliament before Christmas. Because he'd have a majority it's pretty sure to be ratified, which means that in this situation the UK will almost certainly leave the EU on (or even before) 31 January 2020.

That's bad news and less bad news for us. The bad: the UK would leave the EU, there would be no second referendum, and we would lose our EU citizenship on Brexit day. The less bad news: the Withdrawal Agreement does a much better job of protecting our rights than France's no deal ordonnance and decree.

At France Rights and British in Europe we've been working flat out on no deal issues for well over a year now, and almost all the info and news we've put out during that time has been about the no deal scenario. So it's very likely that you - like us! - have lost…

You don't need us to tell you that the election on 12 December really is the Big One: our future rights, as British citizens who've exercised our free movement rights to live in France, depend on its outcome. It doesn't come more critical than that. So in the two articles in this series we've gathered together everything that you need to know about whether you can vote, how to vote, and how to decide who to vote for.

The first article covered the practicals to do with voting - how to register, how to vote, how to become involved even if you can't vote and so on.

In this second article we look at what the different outcomes of the election could mean for our future rights and how best to use that information to make an informed choice about who to vote for in your constituency.




What might the different outcomes mean for our future rights?Conservative majority
Many of the moderates have stood down, which means the party's makeup will have changed and its MPs will …

You don't need us to tell you that the election on 12 December really is the Big One: our future rights, as British citizens who've exercised our free movement rights to live in France, depend on its outcome. It doesn't come more critical than that. So in the two articles in this series we've gathered together everything that you need to know about whether you can vote, how to vote, and how to decide who to vote for.

In this first article we cover the practicals to do with voting - how to register, how to vote, how to become involved even if you can't vote and so on. A second article will look at what the different outcomes of the election could mean for our future rights and how best to use that information to make an informed choice about who to vote for in your constituency.




Can I vote? As a UK citizen resident abroad, you can register online to vote in UK parliamentary elections if you meet all three of these conditions:

you are 18 years of age or over;you left …