As with most things in France the requirements are national but the interpretations and the emphasis can be local. If your local CdM needs to register you, obviously it's best to find out exactly what bits of paper they want.

I think Jonathan Badger may be the man to talk to. If you google something like 'jonathan badger electrician france" you should find him easily enough. He's an extremely helpful person, he's based in Normandy but he's consistently been helping the expat community in France with advice on all things electrical since before I arrived nearly 20 years ago. I believe he's retired now but he's still active on social media and I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a steer.

Hi I seen your thread and thought you could use my input.

I am in the middle of moving to france from morocco, Im a british citizen lucky enough to have european citizen, im a jib ecs approved gold card electrician (and yes i keep it renewed, at my mums address which i suggest you do too) with compex 01-04 gas and vapours.

i have worked in france and europe and even other continents since brexit with 0 hassle if you work for the right companies !
and thats without residence or any other permits.
so here on this thread people are disregarding UK qualifications as non recognisable, when i can guarantee you that our standard of training tradesmen is one of the highest in the world and you can work all over the globe.

my suggestion is unless you want to stick to domestic and commercial, to go towards the direction of shipyard work or chemical plant shutdowns. this will enable you to work at any dock or petrochemical facility with just UK qualifications.

in fact I have simply put electricien region france in linkedin search bar and the first few jobs were in shipyards requiring english language.

the compex 01-04 is an international recognised qualification and it will even be printed on the back of your JIB card. once you have it your phone wont stop ringing.
I currently work offshore 3 on 3 off and i went down the route of refinery shutdown work, shipyards and then naturally progressed in to a drilling offshore job.

if you can hack the time away from your family this route is very rewarding and it will keep you very busy in any country you want to live in.

Yes, I suggested in post #4 that working for company was the way to go.
If the OP wants to work as his own business then that is where he will encounter problems.
I am sure that any UK qualified electrician can wire a house and connect to an electicity meter but EDF will not connect a meter unless the work is certified by a French registered electrician.
I have met UK electricians working on a building site in France for a local contractor.

As Cyrian points out the OP is asking about moving himself and his family to France as a Third country national and starting his own business.This is a whole world away from Brianbunus situation where he is clearly working for a large probably multi national company but as a bonus he is also an EU citizen which of course makes it easier.
Remember if you want to work for a company it has to be for the company to establish your visa/other right to work as the spouse of a French national and to show that they could not find an appropriately qualified French or EU citizen to do the job.
If the OP wants to be "self employed" then a lot of paper work needs to be done I am afraid

Just noticed in the original post that the OP refers to his "partner" This means that cannot use the "spouse" of an EU citizen route and will need his own visa plus of course this can lead to problems with inheritance and inheritance tax especially. The first thing the OP needs to do is get married in some form if he is serious about moving to France

Last year I very nearly booked myself on to a Compex course just for the sake of having it! They run the course in my town which is handy. It is something I had thought about, maybe moving the family out to France and then working off-shore with a registered address here in England.
I could deal with the time away, if the money is good.

I'm not going to lie. I had been looking at jobs in France for Electricians and I was massively put off by the advertised salaries, they seem to be paid peanuts !

This offshore route seems like a better route to go down. I will look in to it and maybe get myself booked on a Compex course, thanks for the advice.

Hi Guys,

what was the outcome of this case ?
I am also electrician working in trade in United Kingom, with Level 2 electrical engineering and 18th edition. Looking to move to France in about 2-3 years. Just thinking what gaps i would have to fill in in my summary to work as sparky in France.
Thanks

I still haven't made any progress to be honest. What people have said in this thread is accurate. Easiest route is to work for a French company until you know the ropes and then consider a buisness later on. However, the wages aren't great in comparison to British wages. Think the average wage is like 14€ an hour! I've lost hope personally, can't stomach the thought of regressing in my career and struggling financially. Shame though, I do love France.

Macca-Thank you for the feedback -So often when experienced expats try to give advice to people looking to move to the EU post Brexit they often get a negative reaction when they point out the need for Visas etc,so it is nice to know that we are right sometimes!!!!.
Do not give up hope-keep learning French and in the future the Brexit situation may change.

Have you looked at getting an EU passport by descent?

Thank You Macca,

Despite the fact i have a european passport as well. 1) It would be hard to sacrifice salary comparing to UK standards 2) Language barrier can play a big role.
Another thing which comes to my mind is remote work, being employed by UK company. IT or cybersecurity.

In France most internal installations of broadband phones etc are done by a sparky.The IT route might give you an in as when my phone line/broadband packed up the engineers who came were a Swede and a Portugese and they replaced the outside and some inside line.Chatting to them it became clear that France was struggling to recruit enough phone engineers to push forward on fast broadband so it might be something to explore

Thank you,

I suppose anything to start with in electrical / installation field can be good for the minute.

I have had some random conversation with estate agent and she talked me through some requirements for mortgage etc. So once you get up and running, there should be also no issues with lending.