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This information has been taken from The Complete France Forum (16 September 2007 - with the moderators and forum members permission) and is high priority information to ALL new residents to France. Please click through to the forum for more information if you wish.

New regulations concerning the Right of Entry and Residence for EU Citizens intending to move to France.

There have been some important changes to the French immigration regulations that will effect all those intending to relocate to France in the future. The purpose of this note is to provide a brief overview of the situation as published on the Service-Public website.

The government is introducing a new obligatory registration system for EU citizens which is due to come into force soon. Under the new regulations, you will be obliged to register with your mairie within three months of arrival and obtain a residence certificate.

In order to obtain the certificate, you must comply with the code de l'entrée et du sejour des étrangers et du droit d'asile (articles L121-1, L 121-2 and L122-1 to L122-3) which sets out the following conditions:

You must be in possession of an current valid passport
You must not be considered to be a threat to public order,
You must provide evidence that you have sufficient resources so as not to become a burden on the French social security system and have made adequate provision for healthcare and maternity insurance.

In terms of the latter condition, the criteria for registration may be fulfilled as follows:

You are currently employed or have an offer of employment in France

You will be making obligatory contributions towards social security/pension/healthcare in the same way as any other French employee. You must produce evidence of employment in order to obtain your residence certificate.

You are not employed, but intending to start your own business in France

Provided you have registered the business within the three months and arranged the obligatory social security/pension/heathcare provisions applicable to your trade or profession, then you may obtain your residence certificate.

You are retired or you have not obtained employment or established a business in France

As a ‘non-actif’, you must provide evidence of resources (such as pension and/or investment income) at least to the level of RMI (currently 440,86€ per month for a single person without child), or if you are over 65, then at least to the level of the old person’s allowance (currently 621,27€ per month maximum for a single person).

The additional entry requirement for heathcare insurance will be satisfied if you hold a current valid E-form entitling you to affilliate to the state heathcare insurance system, otherwise you will have to purchase a private health insurance policy offering an approved level of cover. If you hold a temporary E106, then once it expires, your affiliation will also expire and you will have to obtain private insurance cover. Holders of the E121 automatically receive entitlement to state healthcare insurance cover for life, so they are not affected by this.

The new registration requirement will only apply to persons entering France once the decree setting out the modalities of the process has been published. After that, the right of stay will be dependent upon fulfilling these criteria and obtaining the necessary residence certificate.

The above procedure applies to EU citizens only. Non EU citizens are subject to other arrrangements.

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