My situation: I am dual citizen of France and the US because my father is French and I was born in the the US. I speak extremely little French but am currently trying learn as much as I can. I am married with two small children ages 2 and 3 and my husband is a US citizen only and does not speak French but is currently trying to learn. He works in the Electro – Maintenance Field and I am currently a stay at home mom. We would like to move within the next year so that our children will still be young enough to pick up the language naturally and have a relatively easy transition into the French school system. The French culture and way of thinking has always appealed to me and I have always dreamed of one day moving to France to reconnect with my French heritage and pass it along to my children. I feel it will give my kids a broader prospective on the world and the gift of being bilingualism. I wished I would have learned French as a child and both my husband and I want our children to have as many opportunities in life as we can give them. We want to stay at least a couple of years but our open to the possibility to staying very long term… we are keeping an open mind.
What I do know: My children are entitled to French citizenship through me. My husband is legally able to obtain a work visa because of my status as a French citizen.
What I’d like advice about: I have done some internet digging on expat blog sites but everyone talks about the difficulty in finding work and obtaining work visas for non french citizens… I realize it will not be easy for us to find work but does anyone out there have a similar situation to ours. That is, we already have legal status to work. Our main hurdle I’m sure is our very limited knowledge of French, but I’m trying to find out some loophole I guess. Does anyone know of a niche where we might be able to get decent work while building our knowledge of French after we move there. For an American or English company with offices in France… possibly??? If you can point us in the right direction we would appreciate it. Also, ideally we would like for one of us to find work before we move. Is this realistic? What area of France should we aim for?
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I Am A Legal French Citizen But Have Never Lived There And Would Now Like To Move There. Advice…?
Posted on March 18, 2013.
I have read your post with interest and I applaud you for trying to do this. It’s a great idea to experience another country and another culture, and especially your kids will benefit from it tremendously. But be realistic about this; emigrating is a big deal. I lived in 6 European countries way before the E.U. became reality and I have walked the walk, albeit being single and independent.
The only advice I’ll give you is to take a lot of money with you, so that you are not in the jamb when trying to find a place to live, to find employment, and to settle in. Have enough cash for the first 6 months.
I personally like the Cote d’ Azure, from Cannes eastward all the way to Monaco, but it’s friggin’ expensive. There are some areas in Northern France where life is wonderful and quite affordable. Do your research. France is in my top 3 of place to live on planet Earth, and I may retire there myself eventually.