Moving from Brussels to Ile de France/Paris - madness?

[amyboo]

Hello - desperately looking for some advice...

Me and DH have been living in the centre of Brussels (Etterbeek) for 9 years. I've now been offered a very good job with a good salary with a large international company in Elancourt (Yvelines - 78). As we have a DS (8 months) we'd be looking at living around the RER line C (probably Montigny Le Bretonneaux). I'd then have a short drive to work. DH however would be working near Pantin (13th arrondissement), so would face a commute of around 1h10 each morning and evening.

I guess what I'm asking is: would this be a bad move? DH is prepared to do the commute, as moving to Paris (where his company are HQ) would open up far more opportunities for him. I don't really know anything about Yvelines, or Elancourt, but it seems quite nice. Can anyone advise? Would it be good for families?

My big concern is sorting childcare for DS. He's currently in a creche in Brussels and really enjoys it, so I'd like him to be in creche again ideally. The French seem to go in for childminders a lot. Does anyone have any experience of these or creches? Also, any idea of cost?

I have 15 days to decide, so am trying to gather all the info we need to make an informed choice. I guess main motivations to move would be: better schools/education system, more open space, closer to family (in Toulouse), better jobs, etc.

ARGHHHH!!!!

You can ask for a derogation in the French system, allowing you to opt out and choose your own school. However you need a valid reason, as it is passed to the Academie.

You also have to have a decent school near your home worth asking for a dérogation for.

Oh to add, we live in eastern Brussels, Flanders is about 50m from our house. More and more French speakers are moving outwards, especially into Vlaams Brabant into Zaventem and Tervuren, or even further to be able to afford somewhere with a garden. I have a friend who has just moved to Enghien and another who lives east of Leuven which is far away by Belgian standards, they both have commutes of around 45 minutes in the morning, Belgium is very small!!! Both friends get completely free train travel, many Belgian employees pay only a small amount of their transport costs if they choose public transport. Both friends live so far away from Brussels because they cannot afford house prices in Brussels. I don't know about house prices in Ile de France, but I did find that rental prices in the areas where we would have lived in Paris were about double what we pay in Brussels for the same property. You could say we live in the equivalent of St Germain-en-Laye of le Vesinet in Brussels (sorry if spelling mistakes).

Yes it is true that there is tremendous pressure on the French schools in Brussels, but the reality is you therefore have to be very aware of enrolment dates. For an 8 month old in Brussels, you would be looking to enrol from September 2011 for a start date in September 2012, you really do have to enrol a year in advance in some schools. Our own school has waiting lists for 3 out of 4 maternelle years and 4 out of 6 primaire years. But if starting at a school from the first class of maternelle, getting a place is usually not too difficult, if you enrol in time. I have no idea how many child are on average in a maternelle class in France. In Belgium, the best schools have around 25 per class, the first class (acceuil) nearly always has an assistant (puéricultrice). The first classes in our school currently contain 20 and 21 and will rise over the next few months as children approach 2 1/2. However, a less popular school only a few hundred metres away has less than 20 per maternelle class, so not every school is full to overflowing, just the most popular ones.

You do also have to think about what activities might be available wherever you live in Ile de France. If you choose in sparsely populated area, in Belgium or France, you are going to limit what your child can do after school. In Brussels and probably in Paris, you probably have so much choice, the problem is what NOT to do. Where my friend lives east of Leuven, her children do very little after-school activities, other than their dad's favourite sport, they come to Brussels to go swimming, cinema, ice rink etc.

It really sounds like you need to do the Maths and look ahead several years. Compare tax breaks in the 2 fiscal systems. Belgium lets you offset 11,20euro per day for child care to reduce tax. My friend gets a refund of around 3-4k per year in overpaid tax, once child care is taken into account, but they do have more than 2 children. The more children you have in Belgium, the better the tax breaks, but you have to have 7 or 8 for most to pay no tax at all!!!

Thank you everyone for being so helpful. I think it's really going to come down to quite a financial decision in the end.

DH commutes about 35-45 minutes already within Brussels by tram to get to work, so he's not really concerned about the commute. I am however concerned about childcare (still - for some reason the idea of a nanny or childminder doesn't sit well with me) and the cost of housing.

I've had some advice from another friend about areas to live and she seems to be saying the same as you - to head more towards St German en Laye, Versailles, etc rather than around Elancourt/Montigny. I guess that would still be feasilbe, as it would be around 20 minutes drive for me into work in the morning.

Anyway, I think there will be more discussions to be had over the next few days, and we're off to France to visit family, so maybe that will help make our minds up!

St Germain en Laye is supposed to be the most expensive place to live (apart from Paris) in IdF, isn't it? We were told by the relocation people that if we lived there, we could expect a small house with a small garden, or a larger flat, not dissimilar in size to what we have in Paris.

Having lived in both places, I think I would stay in Belgium. France is a lot more expensive, and I think our quality of life was a lot better in Belgium. We were certainly happier there, anyway.

I have friends who recently moved the other way, from a big house in Le Vesinet to a smaller house in Woluwe-Saint-Mande. They are much happier in Brussels.
I love living in the Yvelines (I'm near Versailles) but I've been here for a long time, have good friends, the kids are settled into school. However, I can't afford a house round here, much as I would love one! I'm still living in an appartment.

If you like house-and-garden living, Brussels offers much better value for money than the Paris suburbs, IMO. And there is a bigger and better choice of schools in Brussels, too.

If you like sophisticated metropolitan living, however, Paris beats Brussels every time!

I listened to the radio today on the way to and from work, and they were discussing the hike in property prices in Paris and Ile de France: 7,500 - 8,000 euros / sq metre on average.

Worth bearing in mind.

Sophisticated city life is merely frustrating if you can't afford to partake of it and are watching it from a poky flat.

Just to let you all know that we turned down the Paris job offer. Too much to consider, and too many negatives. The childcare thing in particular really put me off, as DS is in a lovely Belgian creche which he (and we) love, and DH was not so sure about the commute in the end.

Thanks for all your advice!

Thanks for letting us know!