I'm New Here: Thoughts on Being a New Expat in France

I’m still in the honeymoon stage of life in France. Culture shock is due to set in soon, but for now I just think this place is lovely! Everything is pretty. Food is delicious. Groceries are affordable. The weather is nice. People are friendly. Here are some nice pictures for you.

It can’t last forever, but until it does, I’m flying high!

There are several things that I have noticed about my new life in France that I had not counted on. I can deal with them, I just hadn’t anticipated them.

​What’s the most shocking thing about the current French elections? Is it that Marine Le Pen is the most elegant right-wing populist ever? No. Is it that Emmanuel Macron is married to his high school teacher? No. (And by the way, let’s stop judging him for that relationship--if we’re honest, everybody had the hots for at least one of their high school teachers. Macron just succeeded where the rest of us failed.)

The most shocking thing about the French elections is that I am older than both top candidates! I’ve never been older than a national leader before. Maybe that explains why I think George Clooney is hot but Ryan Gosling is a sweet boy.

America still makes the best hamburgers and pizza I’ve ever had. (Granted, I’ve never been to Italy, so the jury’s still out on the pizza.) But American burgers are big and fat and juicy with crispy veggies and luxurious sauces. American pizza is also big and fat and juicy. Other countries’ burgers are thin with pale veggies and require way too much chewing, and other countries’ pizzas have weird toppings (tuna, corn, sunny-side up eggs, whole olives) with very thin soggy crust and skimpy cheese. If you want to call them Tough Beef Sandwiches or Thin Dough With Stuff On Top, go ahead. Just don’t call them hamburgers and pizza.

There’s a thing called FATCA which makes Americans living abroad consider throwing in the towel and going home to live on their mother’s couch in that Fort Worth retirement community. FATCA was part of the 2010 stimulus bill. It means foreign banks have to sift through the accounts of anybody who looks like they might be American and give their findings to the IRS so that said-possible-Americans report all their foreign income to the IRS. Even the most enthusiastic banker doesn’t want to do that, so sometimes they just turn you down. We needed a French bank account to get an apartment, but you can’t get a bank account until you have a French address. So, you have to prove that your French residence will be your secondary residence by proving that you still live in the US. You do this by producing your proof of US residence and utility bills. We had none of that because if you’ve been reading this blog you know we’ve been staying in Airbnbs or mooching free housing off our loved ones for a year. (The following bank names have been changed to protect our privacy.) Our America Bank doesn’t have a branch in France, so that was out. The first bank we approached, let’s call it French Bank Number One, turned us down flat. The second bank, China Bank, took our application and told us to get a few things together (passports, French visas, a letter from the latest relative we’d lived with and his passport and his utility bills and a letter he wrote explaining that yes we did live with him, our tax returns from the last two years, and paystubs). They never called us back, even though we have an account with China Bank in Hong Kong. The third bank, France Bank Number Two, which our miracle-working realtor  contacted for us, asked us for our passports and the above-mentioned letter from a relative saying we lived with him and his passport and his utility bills, then made us sit in the office with the really nice banker for two and a half hours and sign papers like for a mortgage in the US, then gave us an account! Woohoo!

It’s hard to rent an apartment in France because all the laws favor tenants so landlords want to be really sure that you’re a fantastic person before they rent to you. First, you need the above-mentioned bank account. Then you have to put six months or a year’s rent payments in a special bank account in your landlord’s name to prove that you’ll pay for at least that long. Remember the movie 3 Days to Kill, the French-American 2014 thriller starring Kevin Costner, where Costner’s character’s Paris apartment is taken over by squatters? No? You didn’t watch it with your loved ones? Well, anyway, in France if squatters stay in your apartment for more than 48 hours you legally can’t kick them out. Nope. You have to go through a lengthy legal process, and you can’t do it in the winter because you’d kick them out in the cold and that’s mean. Therefore, French landlords really want you to prove you’re worthy. Americans are known as good renters (good job, guys!) so we had an advantage there. I’m all for sticking up for the disadvantaged, and making sure the powerful don’t abuse their power, but this is a little overboard. Still, I’m new in town and I’ll go with the system since I have no choice.

If we don’t get an apartment in a couple of days, our time is up in our Airbnb and we have to go to a hotel, because there are no other Airbnbs available. Hey! Wait! We could just squat here! Yeah, that’s it! We’ll just stay put and they can’t kick us out! It will take the landlord a while because he’ll have to go through that lengthy legal process, and maybe by then we’ll have an apartment. The only drawback is that I’m afraid I’d be eaten up by guilt. Hmm. I’ll have to think about that one. I’ll let you know.

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Do you have any questions about life in France? I have a ton of questions that I’m trying to answer gradually. Let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Have a good day!