Pulaski

When I first heard of the quote I was studying French at high school, and my French teacher recited it as something like "..... that has more types of cheese than days in the year."

Independent of the quote, I have seen a figure of well over 400 for the number of types of cheese produced in France.

Novocastrian

You rang Madame?

I've nothing to contribute here, but as ever, a lot to learn.

EuroTrash

I did!
Just rallying the troops - us Normans have to stick together in our Wisdom.

BuckinghamshireBoy

Good question. Mulhouse is similar to Slough - best seen in the rear-view mirror.

Novocastrian

<groan>

EuroTrash

I can't think of the remotest similarity between Mulhouse and Slough. Mulhouse is lovely, very pretty indeed. I toured Alsace for the first time in my life last summer and I loved it.

Slough, on the other hand ...

BuckinghamshireBoy

Wasn't being arsey.

Admittedly most of my experiences with Mulhouse have been trying to traverse it, although I have stopped over, but was not particularly impressed.

If OP is upping sticks and moving from the UK to France (bloody good decision by the way) there are surely many more desirable destinations to consider, especially as OP intends to work from home?

EuroTrash

I've no idea what it's like as a place to live, but as a place to visit it's a great day out, and photogenic as they come - big pedestrianised centre (maybe that's why you had trouble trying to traverse it!! you're supposed to go round it) with chocolate-box-pretty shops and houses, some very old buildings, cobbled streets, river going through the town with bridges covered in flowers, a town trail with all kinds of quirky features, good eateries, impressive background scenery with the Vosges and all, and very good clean air.

BuckinghamshireBoy

You make it sound like Montpelier without the mountains.

Yes, I know that one is supposed go around it, but they don't make it easy... I've been making that journey for about 18 years now, they still haven't sorted a proper "route de contournement".

EuroTrash

Fair enough, I guess that puts a different perspective on it. Give it a chance though, go there as a tourist one day and pretend it's a different place from the one where you keep getting held up. I think that's where the car museum is too, isn't it? could be wrong.

BuckinghamshireBoy

Nope, you're spot on: Cité de l'Automobile - Collection Schlumpf - Site officiel - gérée par Culturespaces, Mulhouse

Not that I'd get OH interested in the museum, and I couldn't even send her into town, she hates shopping.

I'll bear another stopover there in mind, as these days we prefer to break our journey when travelling "up north".

Not wishing to hijack the thread, but the only car museum I've visited in the last few years was Prince Rainier's in Monaco:

Monaco Car Museum

Amazing!

offtofrance

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies.

To pick up on some of the questions asked:

Standard of my French to deal with Bureaucracy:

yes this is going to be a learning curve. My French is at A Level standard not fluent.

Why "probably" Mulhouse / Slough:

I thought it looked very pretty and chosen for location in center of Europe, near German border, good fast rail to Paris / Zurich, good airport direct flights to other main EU cities (even Bristol - I am in South Wales currently) good road links. Proximity to potential clients in Strasbourg, Freiberg and Basel + Zurich. Climate. As to why probably - as I will be working for myself and the project is internet based service rather than a human in person service I can be based anywhere so my location can be a probably rather than a has to be if it was a job at a specific place - my French is a lot better than my German, I dont like very hot weather or very cold so ruling out Italy / South France / Spain / Scandinavia (dont speak any), Berlin intimidates me as a very large city, my parents do live close to Munich (Obenzell) which I can fly to easily. Dog review sites of Paris indicated it was not the most dog friendly of places. I started looking at Basel, decided I wanted somewhere more French speaking than Swiss Deutch, looked at Strasbourg, was quite impressed but the airport let it down with everything seemingly needing to go via Schipol. Ease of travel is something I am giving a fairly strong weighting to. Also amount of / proximity to national parks / forests / dog walking areas. While Mountains and Sea are awesome, I used to live in Vancouver, I figured that I would try initially to select somewhere for business type reasons. Another benefit is the university which will mean a good source of computer science graduates as potential employees. Mulhouse did not seem overly large or too small at 100K population, so big enough to have a good social scene but not too big that it would swallow me into total anonymity like Paris or Berlin would. It also seems to have a core middle bit in the historic section of the city - I got the feeling it was a sort of three mile square so everything is close enough together to walk / cycle everywhere easily where as it seems to me in London and New York and presumably other big cities - the bit you want to get to is always a long way from the bit you are in and too far to comfortably walk.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I am working my way through the FAQ and will surely come back with more questions in due course.

Many thanks.

Ben

BuckinghamshireBoy

Ben, it seems like you're doing some very good research on this.

Having read through your reasoning on why "probably" Mulhouse, then I'll back off with the Slough parallel.

Road and air links are indeed good.

It'll be easier establishing in Mulhouse as opposed to Basel - as well as the language, obviously - it's just not simple getting in to Switzerland to set up your own business.

Sorry, I can't offer any any advice on registering / social insurance / tax number / bank account et al as I've never officially lived in France.

Purple Jim

Don't trust the official British figures on what they class as "unemployed". Also, people in Britain can be "in work" but are payed way below the French minimum wage.
The OP needs to have no fears - everything is better, fairer in France, whether it's housing, healthcare, transport, pensions,...

Purple Jim

Yes, that was good news because the previous thresholds were too low.
However, for "prestations de services" you still have to register for TVA (VAT) if you go over the old threshold of 32 000 € /year turnover (before contributions - 22,9% of turnover).