leemccardle

thinking of moving over to france in december and my question is are the city and guilds qualifications recognised in france to be able to register an artisan.

G-J-B

Hi leemccardle. I'm sure far more qualified than myself will be along to help, but I think you'll find very few, if any, British qualifications would be recognised in France; I've very little doubt you would have to retrain over here. Also if you're looking to beat the 31st December deadline, coming over in December would make things quite difficult as your priority would be to secure all necessary documentation to prove you have made a permanent move to live in France.

EuroTrash

Problem is that electrics are different in France, e.g. ring mains are illegal, there is no earth connections in plugs and sockets etc etc etc.
You would have to do a lot of re-learning to French norms and then re-qualify I'm afraid.

Tweedpipe

As others have said, not only is time against you now, plus you'd have to retrain. Still, if that's your eventual dream, start learning French and study up on the French standards.
Start HERE.

dmu

Sorry to add to the messages of gloom, but, as said, you won't have much time to find accommodation to start the paperwork for the Residency procedure (rental receipts, utility bills, all dated December). An AirBnB or gîte rental wouldn't be acceptable, you'd need at least a short-term lease (1 year for a furnished appartment) and a phone bill if electricity is included in the rent. Be aware that you'd have to take out private healthcare insurance from Day 1 (not an EHIC) to justify your applications for entry into the French S.S. System and residency, after 3 months. There are also regular income requirements to prove, not just savings in the bank.... Once you have retrained and are a "French"-qualified electrician, you must register a business entity before you can start working. Which involves a long period without income....
But first you must get your skates on, because, without having fulfilled the "domicile" condition before 31st December 2020, you'd be obliged to comply with the (probable) visa requirements as from January...
If your aim is to move to Europe before the deadline and your French (or any language) isn't up to scratch for retraining, why not consider the Republic of Ireland? I've no idea whether Irish standards are the same as in the UK, but Continental ones aren't.
HTH

scot47

Language would also be an obstacle. Is your spoken and written French good enough ?

KJMW

The system in France is a direct loop system though it isn't so dissimilar to a ring main in the U.K. in that the loop does support several sockets. As for no earth connections, a strange thing to say!. There are earth connections in plugs and sockets. You may be confused by the small two pin socket which supports side lights etc. and doesn't have an earth. They exist in the U.K. also.

dmu

The fact remains that the OP would have to retrain and get French qualifications in order to be able to work legally with professional insurance coverage. No problem if his spoken and written French is adequate, but it would take time, during which no income would be coming in.
We are all being Devil's Advocates here, pointing out what the OP must think about before deciding on a possible move. As I'm wont to say, fore-warned is fore-armed....

cyrian

Sockets are earthed.
It is the plug that determines whether the appliance in earthed or not.
Modern French electrical installations are safeguarded by circuit breakers for individual or small groups of sockets and not for entire ring circuits as in the UK.
In the UK, you can have additional items added to the fuse or circuit breaker depending on the load they carry.

EuroTrash

yes you are absolutely right, my post came put nonsense I was trying tp give an example both of difference in practices and differences in materials. The expresdion I was looking for was 'France uses 2 pin sockets and plugs not 3 pin", but the word "pin" was eluding me.

As you point out the systems are not that different, after all it is the same electricity doing the same job. But in France a sparky has to work to French norms so a UK C&G qualified electrician would have to reskill first.

Pulaski

I have worked (not professionally) on both British and American wiring, and the systems are "dramatically" different, not least because US mains electricity is 120v but US homes still often have several 240v appliances (so homes are wired to receive two phase power, 120v in each phase), and there are no ring mains, but even so, it really isn't difficult to switch between the two systems as electricity is still electricity - you just have different circuit designs, hardware, and connections (the US uses something that looks for all the world like the cap off a toothpaste tube to connect wires ).

I am sure that a qualified and experienced electrician would have few problems in requalifying in another country, if there wasn't a potential language barrier.

scot47

..........if................... Alas people can be slow to appreciate what problems are created by a Language Barrier.