Wednesday, October 1, 2014
As the days left me in France become fewer and fewer, I concentrate on tying up loose ends before I close the house and wend my way to Paris October 28. The taxes, the phone, internet and television subscription; the insurance on the house, the portable phone contract: the goal is to leave all in place so that next year I don't spend half the summer battling the different French bureaucracies.
Take the phone company I signed up with, Orange: because I was staying in France more than 3 months, I was not eligible for the contract for a residence secondaire. I pay 57, 80 Euros a month for the three services, too much to stay a subscriber through the year. But if I cancel, in addition to the 50 Euro cancellation fee, I lose the phone number I have now and I have to start the process of signing up all over again. This year I lost six weeks trying to get the phone set up and battled with Orange over whether I should have been charged for technicians' visits. Ultimately, I had to spend 176,80 Euros to call in an electrician to jump start my services.
Thankfully, some competition between the different phone, internet and television companies exists. Another company, SFR, will allow me to keep my present phone number; better, their price for the same services is almost 20 Euros cheaper. I have just enough time to cancel my Orange contract, send back their equipment and install that SFR sends me. I will still pay 50 Euros for canceling the service, but as a long-term proposition, SFR pays, allowing me to keep the house "plugged in" year round at a reasonable cost --and hopefully, saving me hours of aggravation in the years to come. I learned about the cheaper service from a French woman who is a master of the bureaucracy.
Vis-a-vis the error in identifying me as a taxpayer at the Trésor Publique, the notaire replied to my e-mail and sent me a copy of the document establishing me as the owner via e-mail. The error was the Trésor Publique's. I will visit tomorrow to try to straighten out the error, so the bill for the taxe d'habitation gets to me next month. Ça sera compliqué, the woman at the Trésor Publique told me when I highlighted the error and asked that it be rectified. The bureaucracy will resist.
Next year, with all my regular expenses mensualisès-- paid automatically-- I should be able to return to the house in Caunes without dreading the bureaucracy. The chimney sweep has to clean the flue --a yearly requirement. And next year the roof's timbers have to be sprayed to attack any xyllophage colonies: like termites. these insects eat wood. The men who perform these works are independent contractors, so there's no bureaucracy involved.
The life I've led here has been a French life, albeit with fewer constraints. I have used the health services and found them to be at a high level. As a private individual going to a private clinic the service was excellent, although I understand that public clinics are at a comparable level, if the bureaucracy greater.
There are those who know their way around the bureaucracies and get the most of them. It pays to educate yourself about them if you are receiving health care under the Secu, the French health system: if you know how to work the system the benefits are much broader than those most Americans receive, jaw-droppingly so.
I give you the example of a Danish woman who lives in Carcassonne and is covered under the Secu: In her eighties and suffering from cogestive heart failure, she and her husband are determined to take their usual holiday in Biarritz this year, notwithstanding.
The woman, whom I'll call Gräne, needs oxygen to live. As carrying an oxygen tank with them on their trip is impractical, Gräne called the Secu and explained her situation. The Secu will deliver an oxygen tank large enough to tide Gräne through her holiday to her hotel in Biarritz. The cost of the tank, its delivery and pick-up at the holiday's end? All covered by the Secu.
Gräne is a master of the bureaucracy.
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