redcard

Hello all,

We're considering moving to France in 3-5 years, once we've comfortable with the language, and when we'll hopefully be in a position to buy a property outright.

My partner speaks good French and her current employer would allow her to work from home in France (they also have French base so I guess she would be employed by the French wing of the business). She doesn't like the work much, so this would just be transitional until she found other employment in France.

I'm slightly different in that I'm an Accountant and I'm not sure how well my skills will translate. I'm not currently a fluent French speaker.

So, a couple of questions....

1. Are there any Accountants on the forum who can give advice on qualifications / finding work? I will be fully CIMA qualified in the next 2-3 years, but not sure what status this would give me in France.

2. We expect to live in central / west France, possibly Dordogne area. Are there many job opportunities in this areas for those with limited French?

Thanks for any help

EuroTrash

"Expert comptable" is a profession réglementée in France - not sure what the translation is, do we call it a controlled profession? so you need certain qualifications and you also need to be a member of the Order in order to set up your own practice. If you don't have this status I believe you can be employed by an established practice at a more junior level. Rereading your post I see you're a management accountant, does that mean you would be looking for a job in a company rather than setting up on your own? I'm not certain what recognition CIMA has in France at present but last time I looked at Brexit there was no agreement to continue recognising qualifications and I'm not sure any further discussion was planned on this.

Obviously French tax laws, rules and methods and customs are very different (company structures, reporting, audits etc) so there may be a fair amount of retraining to do. I suggest you look into the training involved in qualifying for this role in France to see what you would need to learn.

Still on the Brexit theme, by the time you move in 3 to 5 years the UK will presumably be out of the EU, so unless both have another EU passport, or one of you does and you get married (well you'd want to get married in any case if you buy a property jointly in France), exercising freedom of movement to come to France and look for work might no longer be an option. Remains to be seen exactly what the future arrangements for immigration will be, but at present it's a bit hard to imagine that when all this sad pantomime is over Britain will still be allowing unrestricted immigration for EU job-hunters. Unless you know something we don't?

EuroTrash

PS - a swift google while waiting for an email to arrive so that I can get started on the day's job, suggests that CIMA is recognised and very highly respected in France, so as long as B doesn't put a spanner in your plans all you need to do is build up your experience and work on your French and you'll be able to compete for the available jobs along with the rest and hopefully by that time Macron might have helped the job situation here as well.

indeed.fr is as good a place as any to see what jobs are available.

dmu

+1
There was a thread some time ago (do a forum search for "UK Chartered Accountant") which will give info. Accounting is certainly different here and retraining in French must surely be necessary. I'm also thinking "high unemployment" among professionals, but Macron may have reduced this by the time you arrive....
Can't emphasize too much how "partners" are poorly considered in France. Take a look at the "Partner Status" thread in the Read-Me: Moving to France FAQs above if you buy property jointly as a couple not legally bound...
P.S. Didn't see ET's latest post. I still think that, however good your French is by then, you would need a retraining period in order to compete with (bilingual) French candidates chasing any jobs going....
Good luck with your plans!

cyrian

Hi Welcome to the forum.
The french do like their rule books - their list of rules and regulations.
The code civil is like a medium sized Bible and there was a pile of them available in the local book shop last month. Obviously it is a must read for french students.
Recently, the code du travail was extended and instead of making an already large tome even bigger - they made the print size smaller.
You would have to prepare yourself for a completely different way of working and loads of rules and a lot of official bureaucracy.
In addition, it is very easy to mis-understand or be mis-understood at times in a foreign language.
Good luck with your plans

EuroTrash

Have to admit I hit a bit of a brick wall seeing if I could find out more about management accountant opportunities in France, maybe I was using the wrong terms but I tried comptable en management accrédité and comptable en gestion, what else might it be called? Just about all that came up seemed to relate to international corporations with offices in France rather than your average French business, and the study courses talked a lot about the international opportunities that this kind of qualification opens up. I suppose France does have them, or is it more of an anglo-saxon concept? Something for the OP to look into, maybe. Do we have any accountants on here?

dmu

Just picked up on your partner's plans.
You can't just assume that the French base would take her on as a salariée. If she works from home, she must set up a French business structure. If her UK company officially keeps her on as an employee resident in France, it must do all the necessary paperwork for healthcare coverage, etc...
ET will explain all this, much better than me....
... And I've also just picked up on the Dordogne question. Do a search for "Experts-Comptable" in the Pages Jaunes, entering Dordogne, to get an idea of how much competition you'd have if you set up a business there. Your best bet would be to start as an ordinary accountant in a company and work up.

EuroTrash

Actually ET would disagree I'm afraid - setting up as self employed if she continues working for the same employer doing the same work that she previously did as a salariée, would be a classic example of salariat déguisé and could get her employer into serious trouble. She would need to continue to be employed and presumably that would indeed mean transferring to a French employment contract issued by the French office.

After Brexit, even in the worst case scenario, it will likely be easier for a company to transfer existing employees between its UK and EU offices, than for a French company to recruit a Brit as a new employee. It may no longer be possible for Brits to rock up in France and set up a small business - at present non EU immigrants can't do that (unless they get a visa that allows them to, which involves jumping through a lot of very small hoops), so unless there are special arrangements for Brits, then if they're not EU citizens I guess they won't be able to either.

redcard

Thanks for all the info. I've come across a few accountant threads, so just browsing through them.

Where did you read that CIMA was recognised in France? I've had a quick google but can't find anything relevant.

Going by the responses here and elsewhere it seems the best option is just to get immersed in the language and take any job that I'd be lucky enough to get, then work up from there.

EuroTrash

Ha, can't remember now but I found a few French forums where people were discussing what was the best qualification to get, and this CIMA - France though admittedly it's biased and possibly a bit slippery - it talks about it being recognised all over the world but doesn't specifically mention France, plus it seems to be talking about the global CGMA rather than CIMA. Is why in my post I said 'suggests' rather than 'confirms'... however I'm sure that as an insider you're better placed to cut through the cr4p and see what they are really promising.

redcard

Yeah, CIMA pretends to be global, but it really isn't. CGMA is the CIMA qualification. There's talk that they're soon to become part of the AICPA, and apparently UK + USA = Global

EuroTrash

Realistically though, I guess you're going to be looking at working in a global organisation with an anglo-saxon culture, so as long as they're impressed... Saying that, I don't know what global organisations there are in Dordogne.

redcard

We're not limited to Dordogne, we're potentially considering anywhere with reasonable property costs and proximity to an airport. Not sure if there's anywhere in particular you'd recommend for employment opportunities?

EuroTrash

Well a lot of people recommend Sophia Antipolis if you're moving primarily in order to work. Not sure it's a place you'd choose otherwise.

I take it you do have a Brexit proof plan, such as Irish passports or something, in case Brits are no longer permitted come to France and look for work after 2018.

dmu

Sorry I wasn't clear. I simply wanted to point out that the OH's partner will face the same problems as the OH - high unemployment in all fields.
I meant the UK company posting the employee to France, with an S1 form for healthcare coverage.
The "setting up a business structure" meant being self-employed with several clients.
But in fact we don't know what the OH's partner's profession is....