Don’t know if this works for images…
This is my brand-new Staatsangehörigkeitsausweis!!
Thrilled to bits…
Don’t know if this works for images…
This is my brand-new Staatsangehörigkeitsausweis!!
Thrilled to bits…
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Lucky you… . you are definitely European… 
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Hasn’t done me a lot of good so far! I couldn’t take my new passport to the prefet rdv for residence carte. So meeting cancelled…, Come back again…,get it right next time…no public transport, miles away…bike it fifteen kms, to bus stop, bus trip, to metro… Etc… And happy parting thought from admin was, it’ll be OK if they turn you down, anyway… You can go and live in Germany. Hahaha! Happy days with Fr. Govt. Depts. I do quite like the thought of rebirth in Berlin…but I might be a bit long in the tooth… And will the cat like it? She’s one of those cats with a big voice and no positivity…
That is appalling Jeanette and what a disgusting attitude from the Prefet.
What do you intend to do now?
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I cried for a while but not for long!
My thoughts are at present…
Its a fact of life, must be accepted…that ancient people, unless valuable to community in some way, are not sure to be accepted without massive reassurance and guarantees that they won’t be burdens on the state. Being fit and biking now, isn’t good enough.
One thing I’m sure about…that I absolutely refuse for ever…to be a part of any devotion to consumerism. I don’t want …and won’t work for many presumed essentials. I don’t break laws, but my lifestyle is as simple as I can make it, and it will be so for ever. The regulation basic income for anyone as old as me is 800+ Euros…I don’t need that much money, although flogging myself a bit, I could probably “earn” it, BUT I have all kinds of wonderful plans…that don’t need money, That would have to be trashed to meet that goal. When UK health insurance disappears…what then? I know there are pensioners with big health bills that will become unpayable…what will happen to them? I do think I must find a way to pay for full health care, maybe its possible, don’t know yet. Investigating everything… I don’t feel entitled to anything, I paid for my UK pension , and healthcare, and I work now, but my income is way below tax threshold. Not scared, will do what can be done! PS!! Thank you for asking, Jane! Its very helpful to write and think things through…I toyed with the idea of a Deported Brit Fogie Blog… to express all the passion nobody would be interested to hear…you can do as you like when old, its one of the boons!
Jeanette… I’m lost now… I thought you had gained a German Passport… which means you do NOT need a CdS or Carte de Resident… ???
re Health Cover… if UK stops ours… I believe we have to pay 6 or 8% on the part of our income which is over a certain threshold… (which will not be much in our case, if anything at all)…
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I heard a man speaking on the Today programme this morning and he hadn’t flown since 2004, despite being invited to many conferences.
What were these conferences about, climate change!
He video conferences, takes the train or a cargo boat that takes passengers and then works for a while in the host country. Obviously, not everyone can do that, but there are people who do not back down on their principles, you are not alone.
Rampant consumerism is pervasive.
I don’t go shopping with friends because they like looking round, whilst I have my list and, usually, stick to it.
I am so sorry that ‘authority’ does not recognise your wish to live simply, but looks on you as a prospective burden.
Getting old is to be avoided!
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Stella, thank you! Im very glad of the opportunity to think/write about the situation, which is unlikely, i think, given the turmoil, to get any easier to understand.
It was part coincidence, part splendid effort on behalf of the German Embassy team, that got my German nationality, legalised, (from birth because g’pa was German and so his wife… and thus…my pa, (his son)… and my mother by marriage!..) German nationality works like that. I researched it starting about seven years ago, and found ancient docs that survived from their region, later obliterated, by allied bombing. All very interesting, and suddenly much more significant, when Brits were about exclude themselves, from Europe. The guy who said…“its OK…if you don’t get your card, you can go and live in Germany”…sounded like he was making a cynical joke against all those people who have established second European nationalities, just ‘to make use of’, …just so they can stay in France, maybe ‘living off the French state, French tax payers’ …refusing to go back to UK as required… It was just a somewhat hostile atmosphere, there was nothing I could say to make them love me, I felt perhaps they had already dealt with too many people who didn’t match up to the picture of how one ‘ought to live’…
I have never hoped to be state dependent. A Brit state pension is identified, as a ‘benefit’ not like a private pension, so it might easily be argued, that living by a UK pension alone,IS …state dependency. The meagre sums paid over a lifetime, never being enough to pay so many billions of pounds, now, ever increasing…with increments. Of course, there’s so much more to the discussion/argument than that…but I guess not …for Prefecture people, who maybe see so many who might feel entitled to any help they get.
I do not feel that is the end of the story. To imagine it as such…is one way to declare we are all alive …and living so peacefully and so healthfully… courtesy of those tiny few multi billionaires… who manage our lives so perfectly well… …
…anyway…no…being German…being any nationality of any of the member states…does give the right to live in Europe…but each member state has its own rules, that are, I think, subject to European law…which is no mean power to appeal to. And yes…there is a right to appeal, against any decisions made.
Thank you Jane! Must do some urgent jobs now, but will write more on this, later…I am confident that ways OUT of consumerism exist, without wrecking the usefulness of a ‘free market’…ideologies are not to be relied upon…but goodwill and determination might sort it out!
PS Stella…all you wrote about the % of income, may apply to me too!!!
…I have no idea at present, but perhaps it will prove to be the case as soon as I stop gripping bits of the cat and staring at walls…
Thinking on.... I didn't understand the very fast ..and prefectorial French, and felt uneasy and pig ignorant. With families nearby looking hopeless and helpless, who clearly belonged nowhere. The whole place looked ready for attack!..There are huge bars over the entrance, the same tests for going through CDG customs.., and armed guards. Maybe it was one little kiddo in particular. I could see just the top of her head, each time she stood on her toes to find out what was happening, for Ma and Papa, and siblings..it was a different section, not for settled people but recent immigrants. I guess the connection for me, with German granny and grandpa, rounded up as enemy aliens circa 1940.., remains..when many Germans and Italians in UK were imprisoned or deported as potential spies, lots died or were just lost, too. Very sad. What will happen to them?I am sorry you feel like that but they aren’t there to love anyone, they are there to do their jobs and it sounds as if whoever was speaking was attempting to be humorous - and in any case he is factually right, if you want to live in Germany you can, you aren’t stuck with a compulsory return to the UK should that be the fate of UK nationals in Europe.
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Don’t forget SOLVIT is there to help with misadministration for the citizens of one EU country
and living in another.
Veronique…Thank you for your thoughts, Vero! 
Should I expect that my own attempt at humour, must be written off, …assumed an OAPs whine, maybe!! sans comment? !!
T h a t …w a s…MY…joke.!! HAHA!
Of course!!! no one is there to ‘love’ anyone!
… but how about civility?
That was expecting too much, first interview of a sunny morn?
There was no teeming crowd, pushing and shoving for anyone’s attention! No crowds of unwanted, suspicious looking, immigrants climbing wet and hungry from life rafts, demanding instant attention!!
How about looking at the files brought, and asking relevant questions?
Before shuffling the top few files, addressing me like an enemy alien, and demanding five years tax returns, not three, which… as ‘required paperwork’, is nowhere listed as obligatory, on any gouv.fr site.?
Whether the superior in the next room, was or was not making a joke, is hard for me to guess. His joke, or not, was told …sans jolly smile, and not by him …but passed on to me…by my interviewer.
My French is fine for all ordinary conversation, but in an interrogation? With accusatory manner and tone?
Im not so hot…yanno?
I hesitate, feel a bit edgey,… makes me forget my passé composé.
Yes, I am OLD!!..not compared to Ruth Bader Ginsburg…OK… I’m a jelly next to her. And yes…I am a passionate anti consumerist, and experience teaches me that looking UNRICH…making no effort to appear affluent, can be mistaken by so many …as the sin of poverty!
Oh dear…a disgusting poor person. MUST be a scrounger…
I detest assumptions, ad hominems, and any attempt to attack or cause one wretched human being to feel “less than” another…so in defence of my interviewer, I must say
…perhaps it was her very first interview…
perhaps she really did not mean to sound like a KGB agent…maybe she was nervous, perhaps when/if we meet again, we’ll laugh about the wreck of an interview that demonstrated nothing in my favour at all, until that lady noticed one file, (as she ended it). and said…“Oh you do have a pension”…She hadn’t got to any of my business information, at all…that could have told her I’m in the same “business” as I have been, for the last 45 years, with no intention, whatsoever… believe it or not!!..of giving it up, to sponge off French tax payers, instead.
No intention to give up my home of 23 years either, and hobble off to Germany, hoping to be taken in …like a stray dog.
I looked very clean and quite well dressed…
God help those poor souls, who arrive all wet… from the ocean…
Jeanette, take heart, what goes around comes around!
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Karma? Nah, Jane…Never think of it! I think that means some kind of schadenfreude… To be found in anticipating a mystical tit for tat…I’ll settle for win or lose…or maybe c’est la vie…etc…
Yes…Solvit is reliable in coming up with ideas. Still, nothing terminally bad has happened yet! I’ve got to bike the 15 kms to the bus stop, again…but that’s lovely, if there’s no buckets of rain, as last time… I have to take my Germ. Passport next time, and that has to be collected from Paris …so all kinds of larks possible, and fun to be had …before we meet again at the Prefecture. I wonder if you always have the same interviewer…I could take her some chocs or something to cheer her up.
The would probably look upon something like that as bribery, not a kind thought.
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Yes, you are sure to be correct, about that, Jane…its a vast place full of officials, they would never cope if everyone took gifts!
I think the guy might be making a joke but based on a fair assessment. People literally suddenly trying to get French (or other) Citizenship before Brexit hits the fan not through any sense of appreciation of the new country or commitment to it. Imagine how the Brits would react to that proposition?
ON the other hand I can’t think of any reason in the world why there should be any worry about you wanting to lead a simple life - particularly as in your own words you are ‘old’ from which I assume beyond the normal working age groups? I got my French Nationality aged 77years old and the major time was spent working out whether I was really committed to France or just using it as a convenience. Which I though fair enough.
Anyway, you have got what you wanted and good luck to you - and of course welcome to the Forum. As you have deduced it is a pretty good bunch of people here always ready with a kind word, encouragement and good advice.
Norman, Jeanette has been on SFN for as long as I can remember, which is a goodly few years ago.
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