Move to France/Europe - would you?

[RiderGirl]

I don't want to go into too many details, but if you realised that you could move to Europe with no visa requirements (we particularly like France), would you? DH just realised he can get a German passport so we could go. It would mean we could actually own a property rather than rent. I've a close relative there who loves it. No hope whatsoever of ever owning a property or retiring before 68 while we are in the UK and there has to be more to life than this!

Well I'm a nurse so there's always that, although frankly I'd happily work in a bar or something.

The only countries in Europe I'd consider moving to if I could are Norway, Sweden or Denmark. I personally wouldn't want to live in France.

We'd definitely wait a couple of years until youngest DD goes off to uni for that exact reason!

Do you mind saying why? To be fair we would consider other places however as much of the reasoning also revolves around budget I think we'd need to stick with France ...

I think I’d wait till she is done with uni personally

Also don’t underestimate how long these ancestry passport applications take!! (I assume it is ancestry) Can be years.

You’d still need to be able to function in French, and would you really just throw away all your hard-won professional skills and experience?

Could you move in with your dad to start with? Or nearby him. Sounds ideal
Feel like you could start by taking courses in French here in the UK
I've read about couples that open a ski chalet, mostly catering to english speaking families, but it seems a lot of work. Worth it if you love skiing though!

DH literally needs one more piece of documentation then he can just apply for the passport - has got copies of his Dad's birth certificate and everything else needed, we're under the impression that it should be quite straightforward! Waiting until uni finishes wouldn't be the end of the world either

If your dad already lives there you‘ve probably got a better grasp of any day-to-day issues than the average tourist. Is there any chance you could do a trial move there for 3 to 6 months to work out how livable it would be for you?

On the subject of German citizenship: are you sure your husband has all the paperwork needed to prove his claim? We‘ve acquired German citizenship through residency and it was a reasonably straightforward process as long as you could supply all the many documents required. Getting citizenship through Jewish ancestry in particular can be quite complex - one friend was entitled to citizenship through her father’s status (fled Germany as a Jewish child) but also through her own long-term residency, and she ended up choosing the residency path because finding documents from the 30s was so tricky. It took us about 9 months from start to finish. Presumably he won’t need to prove language skills or do the ‘life in Germany’ test when it’s through descent?
The appalling state of health services is one of the things that would deter me from ever returning to the UK. Of course any country will always have its problems, the key is finding one that has issues you can tolerate. Let us know if you decide to go ahead with it - and how the citizenship application goes.

I've not really got any interest in actually living WITH my dad 🤣 however, where he lives there's a lot of traffic passing just outside the front door going north/south, it would be very easy to set up some sort of b&b for passing travellers - there's a completely separate space within the house that would lend itself very well for that purpose and he's got plenty of room for caravans, motor homes etc

His dad was German, he's already got copies of his dads passport, birth certificate , grandparents birth certificates, parents marriage certificates etc, literally just waiting for a reply from someone about some other piece of documentation but it's all been fairly straightforward to do so far!

I don't think you can necessarily work as a nurse in France unless you have the French qualifications, worth looking into, I may be wrong.

I don’t know about qualifications either but you’d certainly need to know the appropriate medical vocabulary in French and I suspect the only way to learn that properly would be by doing the qualifications.

We had friends who lived in France for years. She had been a nurse in England and wanted to work as a carer in France - a sector where they are crying out for extra staff (as they are here). None of her qualifications were transferable. She had to start at the bottom and go through every hoop imaginable to gain French qualifications even tho she spoke the language well and could show that she was over qualified for the work she wanted to do in France. Her husband was running gites etc but found that exhausting and obviously there was not much demand in the winter. After about a decade of slog they gave up and returned to the UK thoroughly fed up with it all. She had made it though about five stages of qualifications but still was nowhere near getting to the standards of salary or seniority/responsibility that would make it worth her while staying. Very demoralising all round frankly.

This.

I moved to France but I have a level of French and the kind of career which meant I could work here easily.

Not sure OP. I have a European (not French) passport to a country I have no practical connection to thanks to my tough-as-a-nut granny going round various embassies in her 80s to secure it. But my work is very tied to my corner of the UK, DH's likewise, young kids...

I'd maybe consider some version of it once the kids were over 18, but only if I could get English speaking local work, or remote work from England.

I've changed countries and languages twice now. I'm not prepared to do it again.

A few years ago, I would have moved overseas at a drop of a hat, but now having seen several close family members do it, I’m not so sure… my husband has an eu passport and I love the country his family is from and we spend a fair bit of time there, but I am very aware that it would be quite different to live there. His siblings and mine have all moved to different eu countries at different stages of life. All of them have had a connection to the relevant eu country - either parents from there and brought up speaking the language or partner from the country. Speaking the language, I would say is essential if you want to make a country your home - if you’re not fluent when you move, you have to work really hard to get to a decent level,
especially if you are thinking of working. From what I have seen, starting again in a country without any friends or family can be really difficult and put a lot of pressure on a relationship, even if one of the couple is from there so does have the language and social networks. It seems to take years to feel that another country is your home - and even then there seems to often be a pull between the two countries. The biggest thing though seems to be navigating the cultural differences even if you become fluent in the language - it’s no easy thing to deal with cultural differences, especially when you’re trying to navigate the different bureaucracy of another country. The only family member who I think has a better of quality of life having moved to another eu country moved in their late twenties, made a real effort to learn the language, has a partner from that country and they both work professional jobs and earn what would be very good salaries for the uk… don’t get me wrong, I think there are lots of great things about moving to another country and I would definitely do it for a few years, but I’d want to keep the option to come back to the uk - you see quite a lot of people who move to Europe in their fifties / sixties and then, as they get older and find themselves living in a rural area overseas having not become fluent in the language and with declining health want to move back to the uk and struggle to do so because it’s expensive.
Don’t let all that put you off though! ☺️
Just be realistic about how different it will feel to a holiday and how much work you will both need to put in to get to grips with the language and the culture - maybe start with trying to improve your French now if you’re thinking of France? And, look at ‘ex pat’ boards, which will give you an idea of how bureaucracy works there.
As a final point, it’s not simply a matter of having an eu passport, the eu national has to be exercising treaty rights - eg, working - to relocate long term and for you to go with them. Just something for you to think about along with everything else!

Of course, my husband did the reverse, as did many people I know. He moved to the UK from a European country. But he did it in his 20s, for work opportunities (not necessarily expecting to stay), spoke very good English already. At that stage he had no partner or family of his own and hadn't really built a full adult life. He then met me, continued to establish his career, had kids, and would now be just as reluctant to uproot again as I would. We half discussed moving to the US as a did a PhD there and the natural thing for me would have been to look for jobs there, but his attitude was that he'd moved countries once, and he didn't want to do it again.

I think the point is that moving countries is a big thing, and it's a bigger thing as you get older and more tightly woven into your adult life.

In your case, I'd probably wait until children have left home (unless they are very keen) and then find a way to try it out that doesn't burn too many bridges.

Also, are you genuinely excited about the idea, or is it just because housing is cheaper. I think it makes a difference.

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed responses - all things we definitely need to think about for sure. There's definitely an emotional element to wanting to go, along with the lure of experiencing something new. I feel, currently, that in my life the way it is that I'm quite dissatisfied and that there must be more to life. I'm not expecting it to be easy, but I'm prepared to put in the work to make it happen if that's what we ultimately decide to do. I don't feel we have many options to move forward in the UK, very stuck in a rut so to speak although we are very happy together it would be nice to experience more especially after the grind of raising our children. All food for thought.

Not really.

Having lived in Germany for many years I can assure you the quality of life is much higher there (as is the quality of medical care). I'm moving back next year.

Go for it OP! You can always come back if you don't like it.

I moved to Spain several years ago and have found it easier to make friends here than in the UK. It is hard work moving countries but I’ve done it before and my family are scattered all over the globe so there was nothing to keep me in England. Yes, the language side is difficult but you learn to cope, and the Spanish are surprisingly patient and helpful so long as you attempt to use their language. I know brits here in their 70s and 89s who are quite content with their life here and the healthcare available. It’s tougher for the younger ones with kids as the cost of living here is high as are house prices so I do see them struggling.

Same. I have just been to Italy and the heat was totally unbearable.

I did , and I have zero regrets. So be aware that it isn't all roses but I doubt I will ever return to the UK

Not at the moment. I have an EU passport (and hold 2 different European nationalities) and so do my children, and I have close family living in France, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Germany but DH is only British. My job doesn't really transfer well to living abroad, and with ADHD I find the thought of bureaucracy in a foreign language grim. I love where I live at the moment and have good friends nearby. I'd consider moving in the event of political crisis, but my life here is good and I don't want to uproot myself unless the new life would be much better.

I’ve got sets of friends who have moved to France and are still there. They had good French before they went and have immersed themselves in the local community (one set had small children which made that very easy) so their French is now great. The bureaucracy has been worse than they thought possible though, even with fluent French (and one of my friends is half-French with a resident parent).

I think it’s as much about your own mindset as the country. Neither set of friends regrets the move now but both had to be fairly determined to get beyond some of the teething issues.