davidg Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 (edited) But as you said, it varies from country to country. I'm talking about RSA (revenu de solidarité active), which is administered at a departmental level. How it is applied can vary locally; for example some hard pressed departments have tried to exclude Brits although court decisions have reversed these decisions.. This benefit is paid to people who have either exhausted their unemployment benefit or who don't qualify for unemployment benefit and where the household resources are below a certain level. It is non contributory. To qualify an EU national must be legally resident in France and have been so for 3 months prior to the claim. Non EU nationals need a 5 year residency period to qualify except for certain classes of people (asylum seekers etc). The level is 514 €, which is about 4,500 UKP / annum. On top of that you can qualify for a council house - in some areas in France you can walk straight into a council house because there is so little demand and housing benefit if in the private rental sector. For child benefit you have to have more than one child to qualify. Four kids will net you 5530 € / annum or around 4200 UKP. As Hairy says there are plans to means test this benefit, it is already taxed. A retiree can qualify for up to 791,99€ / month provided they live in France for 6 months of the year and are aged 65 or above. The sum takes into account total household income but is non contributory. For health you have the CMU and CMU-C if you are a legal resident or AME if you are illegal. Anyone receiving RSA should qualify for CMU and CMU-C however, again, decisions are made at a departmental (county) level and may vary. Just to note that as a EU national you don't have a right to reside in another EU country without sufficient resources until you have 5 years residency. So there are a lot of non contributory benefits on offer to EU and even non-EU nationals in France and there are mechanisms that exist at an EU level to regulate who can receive these. It seems that Cameron doesn't need to renegotiate anything with his EU partners, he just needs to use the existing framework. Edited May 26, 2015 by davidg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy1305 Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 Indeed, I was referring to the RSA being the equivalent of Income Support in the UK. Thanks for the other info though. I've not looked at benefits very deeply, as I am a Frontier worker, so pay taxes and NI here. However, it's acutely interesting that one could qualify for over £20k a year there too, if you look at housing benefit, child benefit, RSA, etc. I know a lot of folk go over there and rely on it, then live as much off the land as they can. Not a way of life I'd chase I must admit. Interestingly, we were given over €1200 for the kids school needs when we registered and this is an inviolate amount; everyone gets an amount per child for their school stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidg Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 (edited) Interestingly, we were given over €1200 for the kids school needs when we registered and this is an inviolate amount; everyone gets an amount per child for their school stuff. Good point, it is called ARS (Allocation de rentrée scolaire), it ranges from 362,63 € to 395,90 € depending on the child's age. You even can get it if your child is in private education. Around 4 million French kids are in private sector schools. However it is means tested. If you have 3 kids your revenue has to be less than 35 524 €/annum. Edited May 26, 2015 by davidg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fully Detached Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 Its been an age since I have been on Hpc.com but thought I would have a look in as I believe we are about to enjoy a hum-dinger of an HPC starting this Autumn. Dude, wow! Good to see you. All we need now is DissipatedYouthIsValuable and we can start talking about donkeys again instead of this house price crap. Must admit, I really do miss old dissy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtickle Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 (edited) If you live in a poorer european country, your motives for coming to the UK, for example, are absolutely the ability to find work. What is your definition of the Treaty exactly? ok. Sorry I didn't mean to start such a big discussion. My knowledge of this started when Andrew Neil corrected a politician on The Daily Politics when they'd repeatedly said that the right only applied to "workers" and he'd said no, it's "citizens", the movement doesn't have to be for work - you can move to live without working. Later in the episode he was told through his earpiece that the poeple in the office had checked and it was correct. I now take this resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_market#Free_movement_of_persons The free movement of persons means EU citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and more recognition of professional qualifications of other states.[35] Fostering the free movement of persons has been a major goal of European integration since the 1950s. There are then sub-categories of this freedom. The movement of "workers" is just one sub-category. I agree it's the one that's talked about the most, but it is not the be-all and end-all of this freedom. HTH Edited May 27, 2015 by mrtickle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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