Almost four years after the referendum, many Britons living in France are still in the dark about what Brexit means for their future lives in France, writes Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths University of London).
France hosts the second largest number of UK nationals in the EU27, and is home to approximately 150,000 Britons. Yet almost four years on, Britons living in France still feel in the dark about what Brexit means for their lives. Brexit Brits Abroad’s new report, Brexit and the British in France, summarises the key findings of extensive, longitudinal research conducted from 2017-20 with UK nationals living in France.
Official communications from the UK and French governments were slow to clarify what Britons living in France should do to secure their futures, and many have been unclear about where to turn for reliable information about specific concerns. They feel let down by the UK government, while their encounters with the French state, often in local municipal offices, have created further confusion as local officers similarly find themselves lacking in the relevant information to give appropriate advice. This has left Britons in France with a sense that they are nobody’s responsibility but their own.
The newly passed Withdrawal Agreement (WA) ensures that UK citizens who have lawfully exercised their treaty rights will be able to stay in France and outlines the terms that will guide this. However, it does little to resolve other issues that concern them, including the value of pensions and other income exported from the UK, continued freedom of movement within the EU, and the terms on which Britons in France will be able to return to Britain with non-British partners.
Britons in France are responding to Brexit by taking matters into their own hands – but the results are uneven
In the absence of official advice about the routes they should take to secure their futures, from an early stage many Britons started to take matters into their own hands. This has included applying for the residence permits available to EU citizens and applying for French citizenship.
It is clear that Brexit has already had uneven outcomes and consequences for the lives of British citizens living in France, not least because before the referendum very few Britons living in France had residence permits and French officials have struggled with the surge in applications. Personal circumstances such as chronic and terminal illnesses, periods of unemployment, reliance on benefits and relationship breakdowns, have made some people ill-placed to respond to the challenges Brexit presents for their lives.
For Ann, who had suffered from serious illness since retiring to France, the concern was about what would happen if she was ill again in the future:
I was bedridden for four months and I had assistants twice a day, washing and all that, carers came in twice a day, nurses came in once a day, I had physiotherapy … we had been thinking what on earth do we do in this situation? Because of our health issues medication costs … €1,000, and money would soon run out at that rate.
Further, it has become clear that applying for residence permits has had uneven outcomes. For some, these applications have become the site on which they are found to lack evidence of their lawful residence, and in on which in a few rare cases they are judged—often on the ground of insufficient resources—not to be lawfully resident as European citizens, and thus to have no right to residence.
Another route that people were taking was to apply for naturalisation in France. For those married to French nationals (for a minimum of four years), the route to naturalisation is by legal entitlement. For others, it is by decree, providing applicants meet the conditions of five years habitual and continuous residence, and are judged to be ‘integrated’ into French society. It was clear that before Brexit, many of them had not even been aware that it was possible to have dual nationality or had not even thought about it. Tamsin had been brought up and educated in France to MA level and was now in her late 20s, unemployed and looking for work in Toulouse. As she explained:
It was talking with my colleague so I started looking and found I can apply and have dual nationality … It is just a security measure. I don’t want to get kicked out … One thing I did read … if two people go for the same job, one European or French and a British person, if they have exactly the same qualifications and experience both people would be perfectly fine for the job but they would have to choose the EU person rather than the British one … So if it can penalise me on a professional basis then it is worrying.
Britons in France are questioning their previously taken-for-granted identities
UK nationals living in France have been questioning what it means to be British in France: their understandings of themselves as British, and the values they associated with being British, were also shaped by their understanding of their relationship to Europe and Europeanness. Participants’ feelings about Brexit have been mediated by their social relationships in the UK and in France. As well as sharing stories of family feuds sparked by Brexit, unique to these Britons are accounts of family members’ newly disclosed antagonisms about their decision to live elsewhere in Europe.
Hayley, who had moved to southwest France following the referendum after she and her partner had lost their jobs in the UK, described her late discovery that her family had voted to leave as she wrote to me in 2018:
Recently I’ve been having quite an emotive internal conflict between feeling deliberately betrayed and/or accidentally forgotten about … I’ve realised now that most of my family voted for Brexit and would do again, and the people that I know who voted remain also have little sympathy because essentially they’re bored of Brexit and after all I made the decision to live in France. I must add, I do feel grateful and privileged, I have my health, my French family and a lovely life overall, it could be a lot worse, nevertheless I’m still really negatively impacted by this whole thing and it’s not very easy to articulate these feelings either.
Participants’ perceptions of how the UK government has dealt (or failed to deal) with the concerns and issues that Brexit has raised for them are also significant factors in how they understand their continuing relationship to Britain.
This post represents the view of the author and not those of the Brexit blog, nor LSE.
Despite all the propaganda, it is clear that to move legally from one EU member state to another to reside there is not as simple as all that. To find work seems less of a problem in some places than to achieve legal status as a permanent resident. Evidently, a lot of Brits in France have been caught on the hop by Brexit. Yet, instead of blaming the EU for not giving them the right to residence as of right, in France, or blaming themselves for not listening to other British migrants in France who got organised when they moved over, Brexit gets the blame. It’s all a bit of a publicity or ex-post-facto blame game. If people have a legal leg to stand on, what is their worry?
@Jakob: “If people have a legal leg to stand on, what is their worry?” The problem is that Brexit knocked the legal leg you thought you were standing on away, and you have to find another leg.
I have some experience of this, since I am British living in Germany. Fortunately my personal circumstances made my naturalisation pretty easy, so I didn’t have much to worry about except the bother and expense (about 500€ all told). But I think I have more sympathy for the British in France than you do. For years you have felt that, as a result of being an EU citizen, you have all the rights (except voting) which the locals have, then with Brexit you are transformed from a member of the family to a guest.
Of course I don’t think there is any real danger than Germany, or France, would want to expel large numbers of British citizens right after Brexit. But if you have made your home in Germany or France, you want to know that even when you are old and not putting anything into the economy any more, even if there is a government much more hostile to migrants than there is now, you would still be allowed to stay. This security has now gone with Brexit, which is why many people like me have applied for naturalisation and, if they can’t get that, are worried.
If the Brits living in France are not being given clear information by the French Government why insinuate that somehow it is the British Government to blame?
Nationals from EU member states living here have online information, instructions on how to apply, Local Government sites with help etc. If Brits living in France are not receiving the same, it is the French Government which is responsible, not Brexit or Parliament.
Most EU governments have said (more or less) that they will reciprocate actions by the U.K. government regarding EU citizens resident in the U.K. – some, such as Spain, have enshrined the rights of U.K. expats to equal rights with Spanish citizens- PROVIDING that the U.K. government does likewise. The confusion rests in the fact that the line from the U.K Home Office is both confused and extremely hostile in tone – and you can bet that expat rights will now fade promptly into the background in light of the CV crisis.
Before complaining or bashing French authorities, please visit the link mentionned hereafter. Brits are allowed to stay.
There is even a link for British residents in France explaininh how to get a “Carre de séjour” , as of next July + all their rights.
https://brexit.gouv.fr/sites/brexit/accueil.html
All info are provided in French or English.
I don’t think that the FOREIGN OFFICE is on the same level.
If Brits are losing their ability to freely move in Europe, it’s a consequence of their collective decision of Brexiting. We are glad to have them here but why on earth giving them more rights than other foreigners if they don’t reciprocate?
Regards
When in France…., or any other foreign country, as a migrant, or even as a casual visitor, you have to deal with the consequences of choosing to live under a different regime. That doesn’t mean giving up what you believe is right, or your rights, but it means being awake to the fact that you are in a different situation from the one you imagined yourself to be when in your home country. I stress, “imagine”, because, evidently, a lot of home-grown citizens as-of-right-by-birth cannot get their heads around as to how it works. Brits in France have had about four years to get their act together, if they hadn’t when they should have, right from the start. When abroad, be aware you are not at home. If you consider yourself a permanent resident in a country not your own, make sure you have and maintain the right to be a permanent resident. Imo, and this is not something I dreamed up recently, the EU lovers have not read the EU small print or the EU writing on the wall. All the blather from Brussels about freedom of movement of people and goods has been taken for face-value by a lot of people. I was supposed to have a right to settle in the UK, but was refused a national insurance number, because, because, six million had been given out inadvertently. This in or about 1997. Each country has their own laws, regulations and implementation of same, regardless of the pretensions of the EU apparatchiks. Laws even change from time to time. Sometimes, things change by majority vote. Rare, but true, it happens sometimes.
@Olivier: “There is even a link for British residents in France explaininh how to get a “Carre de séjour” , as of next July + all their rights.
https://brexit.gouv.fr/sites/brexit/accueil.html ”
I checked the page. The English version tells me that there will be a residence permit available which can be applied for from July 2020. It doesn’t say what who will qualify or what documentation will be required. The web page also says “Detailed information will be published in English as soon as possible.” If I were living in France I would not find this very reassuring, especially if there were things about my status which might complicate things (lack of paid employment, criminal record, racist prejudice from the local authority …)
The most helpful page I could find with a quick Google search for UK citizens living in Germany was actually provided by the UK government: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/germany-residence-information-after-eu-exit/foreigners-authorities-in-germany . But this is also short on detail. Basically you are told to go to your local “Forerigners authorities” and ask. It is complicated by the fact that different “Foreigners authorities” seem to have different policies. There is a link to the websites of various “Foreigners authorities” on the subject, but not all places in Germany are listed. It’s all rather a muddle. I’m glad my status is sorted, but there will be many Brits in Germany who are finding long-term planning difficult right now.
BREXIT is an evolving situation.
Till end of june, UK may decide to either have deep and continuous links or to have limited links to EU. So The French state can not yet make an informed decision.
Transitional decisions have already been taken till july 2021, granting full residency rights to britons without any steps to be taken.
There is no unified in Europe regarding immigration because it is a “country per country” prerogative, not a EU one.
Now, looking that from a French point of view, immmigration rules are pretty lax here. We admit people coming from everywhere, it’s a very long tradition. Having a few more brits will add fun to our life, especially if they are brexiteers. It will allow for heated discussions followed by meals and drinks. And I doubt that autorities will take “racist” decisions against brits, it would not be taken lightly by the French courts even if French racists are quite easy to be found.
So please come, your life will be funnier here. We may have strickes and unemployment but it remains pleasurable. So much that we see an annual migration from UK.
Regards