How to Become a French Expat


If you’re someone who believes that living in France is like vacationing in France, you might want to leave this page now. Life abroad isn’t all market-hopping, croissant-eating, wine-slurping, terrace-lounging and baguette-chomping, surprisingly enough. That’s part of it, but there’s another side which requires much more patience, flexibility and attention to detail; the side that involves paperwork, rejection, more paperwork, waiting, more waiting and perhaps, if you’re lucky, success.

I say all of this because over the last year I’ve received many emails from readers asking for tips on how they can pick up their lives and move abroad to get their own piece of the French pie.

“How can I become an expat?”, they ask, hoping it’s easier than they imagine. Well… it’s not. Every expat has their own, very personal experience moving their lives to France, but each of us were held to the same rules and confronted with the same frustrations.

I figured it was time to take the conversation off email and post suggestions for those who are genuinely serious and passionate about making the move abroad, two very important pre-requisites.

These options will not work for everyone so keep in mind it really depends on what stage of…

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