Not sure where you are getting your figures from but this site suggests 200,000 Brits have second homes in France. Let’s say they spend a conservative €5,000 in that extra 3 months that’s 1 billion euros - not to be sniffed at! British Second Homeowners in France Post Brexit - What Happens After Brexit?
Round us, second home owners (as I’ve said elsewhere) tend to be those with more spare money than say the people who stay in our gite. We see second home owners behaving as if they are on long summer holidays - night markets every week, Meals out, some serious drinking. Trips out and about. They tend to live in the type of place that is relatively low maintenance but will also employ gardener / cleaner / pool guy to look after the place up to their arrival. They certainly have more money to spend than we do!
Some wild figures being banded about which I guess means no one knows exactly how many Brits have second homes here. According to Seloger in July 2016 the figure was 500K -
On the other hand Les Echos estimated that in Oct 2019 it was 244K -
What ever the real figure is there’s no doubt that Brit second home owners pump a huge amount of money into the French economy every year and inevitably that is going to fall from this year onward.
Brit Second-home owners can arrange their visits to fit the permitted timescale… or they can apply for a visa for a longer stay …
it’s their choice and not that difficult to sort out.
INSEE, the french government data site, which presumably has access to taxe foncières and taxe d’hab information. So maybe some of those are the under the radar UK nationals who are actually living here, but still have their houses registered as maison secondaire?
But still, compared to 3 million owned by French people, even your numbers are really unlikely to get the Government too worried. The potential implications of allowing all TCNs to stay longer is a box the gov are very unlikely to want to open.
In terms of overall budgets this is tiny, and even in terms of tourism budget it’s not massive. Yes a useful amount particularly when things have been hit so hard, but I doubt enough to make them rethink.
This Insee paper of 16/07/2020 suggest much higher than 50k, but way off the other numbers, although the data used is pretty old at this point
Au-delà des 148 300 résidents britanniques, les habitants du Royaume-Uni sont nombreux à séjourner en France sur de plus courtes durées, que ce soit dans leur propre résidence secondaire ou en hébergement de tourisme. Ils possèdent 86 000 résidences secondaires en France et sont ainsi les plus nombreux parmi les propriétaires de l’étranger.
The numbers come from the 2017 fichier démographique des logements et des individus (Fideli) seemingly, which I assume uses 2016 data, so basically won’t include anyone buying post the Brexit referendum, and all anecdotal evidence is that there has been a sharp uptake in house purchases by brits in the almost 5 years since the vote, be they to live in or as second homes, so I would expect it to be considerably higher than the 86k figure in the 2020 report, but by how much who knows.
Will they be allowed to bring all these things in after Brexit?
No idea… I know some Brits who don’t like French food… so perhaps they won’t even bother to come if they can’t bring their favourite stuff with them…
And an increase in British people selling up…so probably evens out? Can’t remember which INSEE data set I looked at, so your figure may well be the better one. However, still tiny in comparison!
I do find it rather incomprehensible sometimes how British people feel that they should be given extra consideration because of x, y or z. The reality is that British nationals own a tiny fraction of French houses, are a tiny percentage of the immigrant population, and contribute in same say way as anyone else. About 10% of French population are immigrants, say nearly 7million. The 200,000 british nationals hardly even show up on a chart.
If lorry drivers are not allowed their ham sandwiches, I can imagine all fresh produce will be banned.
I remember the time when no-one was allowed to take fresh produce out of UK… not just lorry drivers … and we eat our ham sandwiches on the UK side of the channel…
Brexit has brought far more niggly bits than folk thought possible… I reckon…
when can we expect a further update on driving licence exchange?
Too small
Who ever learns more please keep us updated
Are these events restricted or are they open zoom(?) events for all ?
They are open but not on zoom - they use some other sort of meeting software via your browser. Easy to do…
I wonder whether it is full yet?
“The event will be limited to 300 slots, and spaces will be reserved on a first come, first served basis. If you are unable to make the timing, please do not sign up for a slot.”