The Franco-American Flophouse

Global IT

2012-03-21T11:00:00.001+01:00

When I child a "body shop" referred to a place where you went to get your car fixed. For those of us who work in late 20th century/early 21st century IT, it has another meaning altogether. "Body shop" in our context refers to IT consultancy firms that hire IT workers and send them off on short to medium term assignments for various clients at home and abroad. I've worked for this type of firm in France where they are called SSIIs (Société de services en ingénierie informatique.) It's very common here for a young IT worker (engineer or technician) to start his/her career in one of these places and then move up to full-time stable employment in the IT department of a regular (non-IT) company. At least that was my aspiration when I started my IT career and it seemed to be shared by my colleagues. It was a stepping-stone toward something better.

To understand why these companies exist you have to understand two things: recent history and the nature of IT work. It goes back to the mid-1990's and the ramp-up to the year 2000. Many businesses around the world had legacy information systems that had to be updated in order to enter the 21st century and still function properly (the infamous Y2K bug). There was huge demand at that time for IT workers but it didn't make much sense to hire them permanently and so many companies outsourced the system upgrades to these body shops which could be local or in another country like India. I worked for one SSII in France at that time on one of these projects at a French multi-national based in Paris. Heady days because we had more work then we knew what to do with - my SSII was hiring people left and right and they were often people with little or no IT experience. This boom continued in Europe because of the conversion to the Euro.

But these IT consultancy companies did not disappear once the Y2K and Euro conversion projects were over. Running a complex information system is a little like being the Red Queen in Alice and Wonderland where, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." It's a constant struggle to keep the systems up-to-date: software updates, replacing worn-out or obsolete material or integrating new technology into the system for new business needs. Often these project require expertise that is not available in-house but for which the company will have no need after the project is over. Hence, it make a lot of sense to seek outside help for the duration of the project. A lot of this project work can be done by a skilled IT worker from anywhere. Take a company in France that wants to update its email system, for example. If the company is using a standard software package from a major vendor, that work could be done locally or it could be outsourced to a company in North America or Asia. There are a lot of factors that go into making that decision and I can assure you that cost has been a big (if not the biggest) one. As a result there is no such thing as an American, French, German, Brazilian IT job. A Unix sysadmin in France is not competing against other Unix sysadmins in France or in Europe, he/she is competing with all the other perfectly competent Unix sysadmins in the world. True, proximity and language skills do give the local IT person some advantage but it is a very slim one.

Why? Well, in a lot of cases the IT work can be done from another country. Where you can't bring the person to the work, then you can send the work to the person. If you look at the reaction of Indian IT companies to the tightening of H1-B visas in the U.S., you will see that they simply switched models and had more of the work done in India thus bypassing the visa process altogether. I've seen French companies do this by shifting work to North Africa. Where proximity does matter, almost all modern countries today have highly-qualified worker programs to entice IT people to come to their countries. In an election year there is often a lot of rhetoric about restricting immigration but once the spotlight is off, it goes back to business as usual. So you have situations like Claude Gueant loudly assuring the French that the current administration will lower immigration while the French government quietly implements the European Blue Card scheme. Or you have the U.S. bill H.R. 3012, Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 389 for and only 15 against. I think it will pass after token resistance from various Congress members up for re-election who need to demonstrate that they are "protecting American jobs."

Sorry for the cynicism. My issue is not at all with highly-qualified worker programs. What amuses me are the slights of hand and other shenanigans by various countries and their politicians to "control" this. What I find less amusing is the dishonesty. There is still huge demand for these workers in many countries and highly-qualified IT workers have many options. However, countries like the U.S. or EU member-states are still publicly acting as though they had the upper hand and that they are doing these people a favor by generously granting them work visas. Outside of the public eye, however, they do realize that this is a competition among states and migrant IT workers are rational actors who will look for a deal that is the best fit for their circumstances. As the French would say, this situation is "malsain."

A more honest conversation would be politically incorrect but I think those of us who work in IT all over the world need to push for that conversation to happen. Today, we don't really have a voice and the agenda is being set by states and companies who need us but want to set the terms so as not to upset their constituents or for their own profit. Whether we work for SSIIs, "body shops," internal IT departments or as independents we have everything to gain by recognizing our common interest (whether we are migrants or local) and developing global organizations to make those interests known.

Yes, folks, I think we need a union. :-)

Good Resource for International Jobseekers

2012-03-20T16:05:00.001+01:00

For those of you who might be interested in job offers outside your home countries, Overseas Exile has compiled a very nice list of international job sites. Have a look and if you have some of your own that you would like to share, point them out in the comments section so they can be added to the list.

U.S. Citizenship: Discrimination and Accidental Americans

2012-03-19T11:01:00.000+01:00

I received a lot of email and comments about last week's post, Citizenship 101 for Americans. I want to thank everyone for reading and taking the time to write. Based on what I received, I thought I would post a follow-up here concerning two subjects that generated the most mail: Discrimination in the transmission of U.S. citizenship to children of U.S. citizens abroad and "Accidental Americans."

Let's tackle the discrimination issue first. In my previous post I wrote:

A child born in China of an American mother who lived in the U.S. at some point prior to the birth and a Chinese father is an American citizen by blood even if that child never sets foot on U.S. soil.

This is true but it's not the whole story. As one commenter and several emails pointed out, there are U.S. residency requirements for that American woman that must be fulfilled if she is to transmit her American citizenship to her child born in China. Oddly enough, these residency requirements are different depending on if she is married or not.

Married: If she is married to her Chinese man and her child is born after November 14, 1986 then to pass U.S. citizenship to her child "she must have been physically present in the United States for a period (or periods totaling) five years prior to the birth of the child, at least two years of which were after the U.S. citizen parent reached the age of fourteen years."

Unmarried: However if she is not married to him and the child is born out of wedlock then "the U.S. citizen mother must have been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of at least one year before the child's birth. This period of presence may have been at any time before this child's birth."

Yes, you read that correctly. A child born in wedlock to a married couple where one is an American citizen and the other spouse is a foreign national is an American citizen if the U.S. citizen lived in the U.S. for at least five years (two after the age of 14). However, if the child is born out of wedlock to an American mother abroad the residency requirement is a measly 1 year on U.S. soil.

If discrimination against the married were not enough, I invite you to read the requirements for Americans fathers who have children out of wedlock overseas here (see the section, "Children Born out of Wedlock - Born to a U.S. citizen father and an alien mother") It seems downright insane but, as one commenter pointed out, these rules were recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in this ruling, Flores-Villar.

So, let me get this straight (and correct me if I'm wrong): The U.S. seems to favor transmission of U.S. citizenship to children of unmarried American women abroad who have the most tenuous connection possible (1 year residency) to the home country. I would really appreciate someone explaining the logic behind all this because I, quite frankly, don't get it.

The second issue was that of "Accidental Americans" - those children inadvertently born on U.S. soil who acquire U.S. citizenship via jus soli and keep it (often unknowingly) all their lives unless they renounce. Some of the people I talked to about this were not at all amused. The most common reaction I've heard was "They can't do that. I'm French (or another nationality) and to hell with the U.S. government. I am not a U.S. citizen and I refuse to be considered one. They can't enforce this."

I understand their anger completely. This is ridiculous and a democratic nation-state should not be in the business of forcing people to be citizens. My take on it is that, whatever the circumstances around the acquisition of citizenship, an individual should be able to renounce or relinquish any time he or she wishes. The U.S. does not make it easy or cheap to opt out and I think that is shameful. Is the U.S. really so desperate for citizens that it would hold people captive? This makes no sense whatsoever and is potentially going to cause major diplomatic incidents with other countries because, yes, it appears that the U.S. is trying to impose citizenship on these people.

How? Well, the most obvious method to catch those "Accidentals" is attempted entry into the U.S. on a foreign passport that lists a U.S. place of birth. The Isaac Brock Society is reporting that Canadians trying to enter the U.S. on Canadian passports with a U.S. birthplace are being hassled at the border and told to get U.S. passports or produce a certificate of loss of U.S. nationality (CLN). Phil Hodgen's blog is reporting that the Premier of New Brunswick, David Alward (Canadian citizen born in Massachusetts) is now having to comply with U.S. tax laws. On the Europe side, the Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was caught in this trap and rather indignantly renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2006. In France there is Anne Sinclair (DSK's wife) who appears to also be a U.S. citizen and who I assume has or will be required to file 1040's and FBAR's. Finally, the brother of a personal friend of mine had a ghastly experience trying to go home to Seattle to see his mother. He was traveling on a German passport (he had renounced U.S. citizenship years before) and was interrogated for over an hour at Sea-Tac before he was allowed entry into the U.S. So they are paying attention at the U.S. border and anyone with a U.S. place of birth on their passport is likely to be questioned closely.

That was the simplest and most obvious method of flushing out those "Accidental Americans." In the past, as long as they didn't travel to the U.S. they could live out their lives in blissful ignorance of their citizenship status and the U.S. had no way to detect them. Enter FATCA. Since these "Accidentals" have a U.S. place of birth, their local bank in Germany, France, the UK and other countries will know immediately that they are dealing with a potential "U.S. person" and will have to ask for further information to confirm that status. If that "Accidental" cannot prove that he or she isn't an American citizen then the bank will be required to treat him/her as one and do the necessary reporting to the U.S. government. I predict that once FATCA comes on-line and European banks start informing their clients of their status as U.S. citizens that there will be a mighty roar of anger directed at the United States. A roar that may just be too little, too late.

So, my friends, I hate to break this to you but, yes, the U.S. government can indeed claim you as a citizen against your will and now has two methods to enforce it. As for you Europeans accidentally born in the U.S. who are hoping that your countries will save you, it appears that at least five of them (UK, France, Germany...) seem to be delighted to cooperate with the U.S. government on this matter. We'll see what happens at the EU level.

Real Men Don't Drink Wine?

2012-03-19T08:09:00.001+01:00

This was passed along by my MBA Marketing Professor, Marco Protano, via Facebook.

This is a New Zealand advertisement that is anti-wine, pro-beer. I thought it was quite funny and an interesting window into a part of NZ culture.

Identity and Religion

2012-03-18T11:08:00.000+01:00

My French friends, colleagues and family are often very surprised to discover that I am a Roman Catholic. In their minds, "American" is synonymous with "Protestant Christian." Some even go so far as to imply that "French" and "Catholic" just naturally go together even in this secular Republic. This seems to be true even of my friends who are supposedly atheists. It has not escaped my notice that the vast majority of my friends here have had their children baptized in the Church. "It's tradition," they tell me or, "It's part of French culture."

Well, mes amis, it's also a part of my culture of origin. Just as the English language was brought over by European immigrants to the U.S., the Roman Catholic religion was carried to the New World by generations of German, French, Spanish, Italian and other immigrants where it took root and flourished. Catholics are not a majority in the U.S. but they do constitute a very large minority. In times past there was discrimination against them - you have only to look at the religious affiliation of American presidents to see it. Out of over 40 U.S. presidents, only one Roman Catholic was ever elected to that office: John F. Kennedy.

Growing up Catholic in the U.S. I was always aware of this. It was never a problem per se, just a fact that, nevertheless, meant keeping a discreet silence when my Protestant friends enthusiastically talked about being "born again" or when Catholic positions on birth control and other controversial topics were dissected and found wanting over a dinner date.

So it was very odd to find myself in a country where Roman Catholics were firmly in the majority (around 65% in 2006) and Protestant Christians a very tiny minority (around 2%). In some ways it has been liberating. To know what Saint's Day is being celebrated, I have only to look at the weather report (for example today, March 18, is the day of Saint Cyrille). When I walk down the streets of Versailles or Paris, there are churches everywhere if I want to light a candle or pray before going about my daily business. If I want to go to Mass I have a multitude of options since most churches offer early morning, lunchtime and evening services every day. Some of the Church's Holy Days of Obligation are also national holidays (something that seems rather unfair to other religions and contrary to the secular nature of the French Republic).

In other ways, however, it has been a little like walking through a minefield. I have frequently been drawn into surreal conversations with French Catholics who were obviously having a moment of cognitive dissonance as they tried to square "American" and "Catholic" in their heads. Some have assumed I converted when I married a Frenchman (not at all - I was baptized Catholic as an infant by my Catholic parents) and others have tried to explain to me that Catholicism in France is not at all like Catholicism in the U.S. or in other parts of the world. One member of my French family even refused to believe that the sacraments (Baptism and Confirmation, for example) were the same in both countries or that the Mass is celebrated in the same way all over the world.

Another complication has been my status as an immigrant. In theory, as a baptized, confirmed, practicing Catholic I am welcome in any church, anytime, anywhere. In reality, I have learned to be very careful since some parishes (not the Church itself but the parishioners) seem to have an rather unhealthy connection with some of the more xenophobic anti-immigrant elements of French society. If I so much as catch a whiff of the Front National, I back off immediately. In all fairness I cannot know how such people would react to me (in all likelihood they would consider me "not so foreign" and I would be very welcome) but I still find it painful to be around such people and the rhetoric hurts even when they carefully explain that they are not talking about me. In fact, their words only make it worse because if I gratefully accept belonging on those terms then I am complicit in their hatred and ostracism of the Other.

With that in mind, and after much trial and error, I have found a few churches where I am comfortable and attend Mass on a regular basis. The French churches that I attend (or have attended in the past) are Sainte Odile (the church where I was married and my children baptized) and Saint Ignace (the Jesuit church rue de sevres). But the church where I feel the most comfortable and the most welcome is Saint Joseph's (the "mission anglophone") on Avenue Hoche near Etoile. It is not so much that the Mass in in English (though it is nice to be able to sing hymns from my childhood) but the sheer diversity of the population. In this context "English-speaking Catholic Church" means serving all the people in Paris who speak English as a first or second (or even third) language which means Chinese, Indians, Americans, Australians, Irish, Canadians, Sri Lankans, Africans and many other nationalities. United by faith, national origin is irrelevant here.

Something that, in my view, ought to be the case everywhere.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

2012-03-17T11:40:00.002+01:00

About a year ago a friend from London showed me a clip from the Ukelele Orchestra and I was hooked from the first note. I can't begin to properly describe their music - it's really something you have to see/hear for yourself. This song, "Fly Me Off the Handel," is a particular favorite of mine.

There are many others on Youtube that are just as good. If you liked this one, I also recommend "Killing Me Softly" and "Rawhide."

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Citizenship 101 for Americans

2012-03-16T14:49:00.002+01:00

This week I had the immense pleasure of going into town and having lunch with a very handsome and thoroughly charming American man near Saint Sulpice. Like me he is married to a French national and has lived here in France for many years. As you can imagine we had a lot to talk about but there was one topic in particular that had us both chortling over our meal: how little Americans know about how American citizenship really works. Over the years we have both heard some truly amazing statements and interrogations from people in the homeland about our status. Americans don't seem to have a very good grip on what their citizenship really means: how it is acquired, kept or lost, the duties and responsibilities attached to that citizenship and what it means in the world outside the U.S.

All joking aside, I find that a bit frightening. Citizenship is an individual status - something that is between an individual (you) and a country and it will impact all aspects of your life. Not understanding that relationship is downright dangerous and can get you into all kinds of trouble or, conversely, confer certain benefits that you may not be aware of.

Here are a few of the things I've heard or been asked about over the years about the status of American citizens abroad. Some of these questions may seem very silly to some of you but I assure you the people who asked were genuinely interested (or genuinely hostile) and were very surprised by my answers. I'll give the question/statement first and then my answer with links to sites where you can explore further. As always, feel free to comment or challenge what I say:

Are all people born in the U.S. citizens of the United States?: Yes, for the most part. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says that anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen. This has been very broadly interpreted to mean everyone including babies whose mothers are tourists, businesswomen, students, undocumented workers and so on. So, for example, a Frenchwoman on a business trip who goes into premature labor and has a baby in Boston has just given birth to a dual U.S./French citizen. This is irrespective of the wishes of the mother or father (even the other country's government has nothing to say about it). Quite often the parents are completely unaware that the child is, in fact, an American citizen. We call these children "Accidental" or "Involuntary" American citizens.

Nevertheless they are full U.S. citizens and have equal status with Americans in the homeland: they have the right to return to the U.S. to live and work, they can vote in U.S. elections, they are required to have a U.S. passport to enter the U.S. and they are subject to all the tax and reporting requirements of the U.S. government. Very often the only way these people find out they are U.S. citizens is when they grow up and travel to the U.S. on business or as tourists. They are stopped at the border, questioned closely when the immigration officer notes their place of birth on their passport and then informed that they are, in fact, U.S. citizens. This often comes as a huge (and often unpleasant) surprise to them. The only people born in the U.S. who are not U.S. citizens are those who have renounced that citizenship formally at a U.S. consulate abroad and can present a CLN (Certificate of Loss of Nationality) if they are challenged.

You have to be born in the U.S. to be a U.S. citizen: False. American citizenship is transmitted though both jus soli (birth on U.S. soil) and jus sanguinis (blood). A child born in China of an American mother who lived in the U.S. at some point prior to the birth and a Chinese father is an American citizen by blood even if that child never sets foot on U.S. soil.

People born in the U.S.who have never lived or worked there lose U.S. citizenship if they don't "activate" their American citizenship once they reach their majority: False. The U.S. has no automatic "opt out" mechanism for U.S. citizenship at the age of 18. If a French child born in the U.S. but living in France does nothing once he/she reaches the age of majority then he/she is still an American citizen. The only way to stop being one is to go down in person to the U.S. Embassy and renounce. This process includes paperwork, interviews and in most cases a fee of 450 USD. Failure to do this means that person is an American for life.

Americans who live outside the U.S. for X number of years lose U.S. citizenship: False. American citizenship does not come with an expiration date and is not tied to residency in the U.S. An American citizen can leave the U.S. at any age, never come back to the U.S. to live and will still be an American citizen until he/she dies.

American citizens abroad can't vote: False. This is a situation so strange that it is practically a comedy. All American citizens have the right to vote but it is tied to that U.S. state where he or she last resided or had a U.S. address. So, for example, a U.S. citizen born in California who last resided in the state of Washington and who then moved abroad and hasn't lived in the U.S. in 30 years will vote in Washington State elections. Specifically that person is eligible to vote for Washington state representatives to the U.S. Congress (senators and representatives) and for President. In other states it appears that overseas Americans are also allowed to vote in the local elections as well as the federal ones. There are even 18 states that allow people who have never lived or worked in the U.S. to register to vote where their parents were registered to vote.

American citizens who marry foreign nationals and live in the foreign spouse's country lose American citizenship: False and this one always makes me laugh because it is almost always thrown at American women who marry foreign men (rarely of American men who marry foreign women). It used to be true in the early 20th century but those laws were challenged and dropped because, among other things, they were highly discriminatory toward women. So, no, gentlemen, an American woman who marries a Frenchman (however mad that may make you) will still be an American for life unless she renounces.

American citizens who become citizens of another country automatically lose American citizenship: False. An American who voluntarily naturalizes in another country is only committing a potentially expatriating act (one of 7 in fact). However it is only an expatriating act (one that causes that person to lose citizenship) if it is committed with the intent of giving up U.S. citizenship. So, an American who becomes a citizen of Brazil, for example, will not lose American citizenship unless she intends to give up her American citizenship. If that is not her intent, then she keeps her U.S. citizenship and becomes a dual.

American citizens abroad have to obey U.S. laws even if they are living in a foreign country: True. This is one that always amazes people because, after all, if someone is doing something legal in a foreign country that is illegal in the U.S. how in the world can the U.S. claim that U.S. law still applies? Well, folks, in some cases it does though prosecutions are few. Some U.S. laws are extra-territorial and American citizens, wherever they happen to be, are subject to them even if they are dual citizens. Still don't believe me? Here is a direct quotation from the U.S. State Department website:

However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there.

American citizens abroad receive special services and protection from the U.S. government: This one is a heartbreaker because the answer is "no" for the most part. There are no special services for long-term Americans abroad other than document services (passports and other official documents required by the host country) and some limited help when it comes to U.S. taxes. Consular protection is limited to making sure that the family is notified if an American citizen ends up in jail or is in trouble. They can also visit that citizen in jail and make sure that the conditions are correct. That is about it and I want to emphasize that this is not at all the fault of the Embassy/Consulate personnel who are very nice, very efficient folks. In my experience they always try to help but there just isn't a whole lot they can do for an American on foreign soil and they can do almost nothing for a dual. A U.S. passport is not necessarily much help either - it doesn't buy special treatment or a "get out of jail free" card. When a U.S. national is in another country and that country decides that person has done something wrong that person is in their jurisdiction and will suffer the consequences. I know people who have been in that situation and, yes, those U.S. citizens went straight to a foreign jail.

As for those very particular circumstances where American citizens need evacuation from dangerous situations, the reality is that this is a service for which those citizens will be billed. Yes, you heard me right, and you can find this information on the U.S. Department of State website where it clearly states:

Departure assistance is expensive. U.S. law 22 U.S.C. 2671(b) (2) (A) requires that any departure assistance be provided “on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable.” This means that evacuation costs are ultimately your responsibility; you will be asked to sign a form promising to repay the U.S. government. We charge you the equivalent of a full coach fare on commercial air at the time that commercial options cease to be a viable option. You will be taken to a nearby safe location, where the traveler will need to make his or her own onward travel arrangements. If you are destitute, and private resources are not available to cover the cost of onward travel, you may be eligible for emergency financial assistance.

I had a friend who was in a bad situation here in France. She had medical problems, an abusive spouse and was completely destitute (her French spouse took all the assets). She went to the U.S. embassy here and they were very very sympathetic but the only thing they could do for her was provide her with a short-term loan for a plane ticket. Since there was no one to help her once she got home (and she had visions of ending up sick on the streets of her home city in the U.S.) she thanked them and then threw herself on the mercy of the French who did care for her and helped her to sort out her situation. She is now a French citizen and a very loyal and grateful one.

Another very long post. I'll stop there. Please feel free to comment or add your own questions and answers. I deliberately did not touch on the U.S. tax/reporting situation but I'm sure some of you will be more than happy to talk about it. :-)

Immigration Policy and Local Politics: IRE Act

2012-03-16T10:41:00.001+01:00

In a national election year immigration policy is one tool among many for domestic politicians to attempt to garner votes. Most of what hits the media are harsh initiatives to restrict immigration in the name of saving domestic jobs or calming an electorate fearful of being swamped by strange people with funny accents and odd customs. People like me. :-)

But behind the scenes the situation is much more complicated. Business is certainly not interested in restricting immigration and they contribute heavily to campaigns. Many sending countries want their nationals to be allowed entry so they can send remittances back to the home country and they actively lobby the politicians in the host country. Citizens themselves have family and friends who are immigrants and they will vote against anti-immigrant candidates. My daughter, for example, was quite impressed by Marine Le Pen right up until she learned about her views on immigration and dual nationality - she is not about to vote for someone who may cause harm to her immigrant mother. In the U.S. the Republican party is committing political suicide in a similar manner - there are many Hispanic voters in the U.S. who are not likely to vote for someone who suggests that their friends and family members ought to be handcuffed and deported.

A few very smart politicians have figured this out and, instead of joining the rhetoric against immigrants, they are finding ways to use immigration policy to their own ends (getting re-elected). Just as initiatives against immigrants may play well on the national stage, they see that initiatives for immigrants may play very well locally if they are properly targeted to please an electorate who are members of a particular diaspora.

That seems to be the driver behind a little known bill in the U.S. Congress called the Irish Immigration Recognition and Encouragement Act of 2011 (IRE Act) which would allocate 10,500 visas to Irish nationals wishing to come to live and work in the United States. This is basically an extension of another visa program called E-3 which is right now only available to Australian nationals. Yes, my friends, in the middle of a hot national debate over immigration, some elected representatives are trying to increase it. Who is sponsoring this bill? Two senators, Scott Brown (Republican-Massachussetts) and Mark Kirk (Republican-Illinois). Both these states have large Irish-American populations and this bill (as well as another being proposed by Senator Charles Schumer) seems to be quite popular. In this article Senator Brown explains the rationale behind the bill:

“This measure is crucially important to an Irish community that maintains strong historical and cultural ties with the United States,” stated Brown.
Added Brown: “My bill would provide a legal pathway for the thousands of Irish that wish to come to this country legally. It would allocate 10,500 visas per year for Irish nationals under the E-3 visa program, which is currently only available to Australia.
Most importantly, it does not seek to add controversial provisions that would endanger our national security or rule of law. With the bipartisan passage of H.R. 30l2 in the House of Representatives, the Senate has an opportunity to make significant strides towards fixing some of the problems in our legal immigration system.
I strongly believe that the Irish E-3 visa provisions must be included in these negotiations in order to correct the long standing barriers to Irish immigration to the United States and recognize the unique relationship between our countries.”

What I find fascinating about Brown's words is how he has crafted his argument. Correct me if I'm wrong but what he seems to be saying is 1. the U.S. and Ireland have a long and special relationship 2. increased Irish immigration will not pose a national security or legal problem for the U.S. and 3. the bill is necessary to correct an injustice. I will not comment on the first two but the last is simply ridiculous. True, American immigration policy changed in the last century to be more diverse and less favorable to European immigration but, nevertheless, today there are around 41 million Americans of Irish descent (one out of five Americans). Historically the group that has had the most barriers to immigration was not the Irish (or other Europeans) but Asians who in some cases could not even apply for citizenship even when they were allowed entry into the U.S.

I don't want to be too hard on Senator Brown. His job is to represent his constituents and their interests. Americans of Irish descent vote and are certainly entitled to ask him for measures that benefit them. But it does raise some interesting questions. For one thing this is not simply a domestic matter - there are two nations (the U.S. and Ireland) and one superstate (the EU) involved here. Is it really to the benefit of Ireland and the EU that the U.S. "poach" their citizens, in particular those highly-qualified professional workers that the EU is trying to lure to Europe through programs like the Blue Card? Did the Senators that proposed this bill talk to anyone other than their local constituents before they proposed it? What would be the reaction of the U.S. if a European state started a special visa program for highly-qualified American entrepreneurs using arguments very similar to Brown's. In fact some EU states could go even farther and claim that some Americans, by virtue of their descent, are still Europeans on some level and that the U.S. government should be gracious and share their talents and productivity. Now, wouldn't that be an interesting idea?

Palais de la découverte

2012-03-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

Just before the end of the school vacation the younger Frenchling proposed a trip into town to see the Palais de la découverte. This is a science museum in the heart of Paris and my daughter has been there many times on school trips.

The weather could have been better that day but it was a still a nice ride into town. Versailles is not that close to Paris but we are right smack on the RER C line which goes from the Versailles Castle straight into the center of the city (Pont de l'Alma, Champs de Mars/Tour Eiffel).

Our stop was Invalides which is usually just a transfer point for me into the Paris metro. As we walked through the train station to find the right exit I saw parts of it that I never seen before. Some really lovely stonework, old doors and grills. This station is right next to the Seine which occasionally overflows its banks and seeps into the station and even onto the tracks.

We exited right under the Pont Alexandre III one of the largest and gaudiest bridges that cross the Seine. You either love it or hate it. It was built in 1900 for the World Fair and its one of several monuments in that area that survive from that period - the Grand and Petit Palais are two others.

The Palais de la découverte is in the 8th district on Franklin Delanor Roosevelt Avenue and opened in 1937 in one of the wings of the Grand Palais. It's quite an impressive building and if you think the outside is amazing, you will be stunned by the interior.

Our area of interest that day was the Astronomy section. The younger Frenchling is fascinated by theories of the origins of the universe. And of course we had to check out the planetarium as well. The show was good - very practical in the sense that the presenter tried to help the audience reliably find some of the more obvious and interesting objects in the night sky.

After the show we strolled around and stumbled on a presentation about radiation given by a very enthusiastic young French scientist.

After our visit we strolled around the neighborhood looking for a good place to eat. Here are some pictures I took as we walked around. I was very surprised to find this bust of Champlain, the "Father of New France" (aka Quebec).

And this monument to the the Russian soldiers who fought on French soil in the first World War.

Sea Turtles, Seaweed, and Seagulls

2012-03-09T13:50:00.000+01:00

There are a lot of grand theories about why people migrate. I just finished reading The Migration Apparatus by Gregory Feldman and he devotes a lot of space to documenting efforts in Europe to make migrants' motivations and actions"legible". The idea, of course, is to find some model that would allow states to better understand why people move with an eye toward better controlling that movement. Technology is their new best friend in this endeavor - if they can just get enough raw data and tie it to a model that fits then they will finally be able to get this all under control. As an IT person I smell money and work. As a migrant I am dubious that this will actually do any good at all and may even have some very pernicious side effects for migrants and non-migrants alike.

In parallel I am reading Beyond a Border by Peter Kivisto and Thomas Faist. They have a good overview of some of the more popular theories of migration: Push/Pull Model, Neoclassical Equilibrium Perspective, Network Theory and New Economics. All very interesting from a purely theoretical and very academic perspective. They seem to share my own doubts about the validity of these models. The models are very pretty, certainly explain some things and seem intuitively plausible but they are also reductionist to the point of absurdity. Oh, how nice it would be to simply assume economic motivations which would allow one to completely ignore as irrelevant those messy "mixed migration flows."

And then last night I found and read this dissertation by Seth Werner submitted in January of 2012 in support of his Doctorate in Philosophy. It's called "Chinese Return Migration and Kunming’s ‘Jia Xiang Bao’ - Hometown Babies." I loved his approach for several reasons. He genuflected to theory but he allowed for the evolution of his original ideas through the field research that he conducted with actual migrants. Yes, he went out and talked to them and made some interesting discoveries which he summarizes and interprets in his paper. He had the humility as well to admit that he is trying to hit a moving target - neither his framework nor his informants are living in a static world and things are changing even as we attempt to understand them.

Werner primarily looked at a group of people referred to as haigui or "sea turtles," a term used for Chinese who left China for study or work and who subsequently decided to go back. This phenomenon is of particular interest right now because:

According to recently published statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE), approximately 1.4 million Chinese students and scholars went abroad between 1978 and 2008. It is estimated that 390,000 have since returned, and, of these returnees, almost half have done so from 2005 to 2008 (Ministry of Education, 2010).

The questions he asks are deceptively simple: what drove these people to emigrate in the first place, what brought them back to China (specifically Kunming) and what has been the experience of these people as they re-integrate? What follows here is a rough summary of Werner's answers to these questions.

Why did they emigrate? Some of it had to with policy changes in both the Chinese and the receiving state. Looking at the U.S. the country had traditionally been very hostile to immigration from Asia but this loosened up in the 1960's. But that was probably less significant then changes on the China side with new laws that allowed Chinese to emigrate for private reasons and a policy of encouraging some Chinese to go abroad for higher education. So the short answer here is that they emigrated because they could or were actively encouraged to do so. Smart policy because it allowed the Chinese government to use other states' education systems to train and educate their people.

What brought them back to China? Having encouraged some people to get an overseas education and work experience, China had every interest in enticing them to come back and they offered tangible benefits to those who decide to do so:

For example, over half of university-level administrators in the institutions directly under the Ministry of Education are returnees (Li, 2005). Further, Zhao and Zhu (2009) report that at least three quarters of the presidents of Chinese universities and the academicians at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering have overseas study and/or work experience.

But that isn't the entire story. To find out more Werner looked at a group of returnees that bypassed the larger cities like Shanghai and settled in Kunming (population 6.5 million) the capital of Yunnan Province. This is a region that is taking off economically in part because the Chinese government is trying to encourage development beyond the coastal areas. Werner's case studies really illustrated the multiple variables that migrants had to consider before they made the decision to move back to China and specifically to Kunming. In one case, it started with the inability of the person to find work in the U.S. in a tight labor market. This was then exacerbated by news from her friends who had returned to China and had found good positions there. So she gave up and returned to China where she had several job offers almost immediately. In another case, the person, after receiving several degrees from European institutions, returned to China and went straight home to Kunming because her parents and her child were there. She was fully aware that she could have far more opportunities in Shanghai but she liked the slower pace of the regional city where she had family. Another returnee from New Zealand says he was motivated by the idea of being his own boss - something he saw as less likely in New Zealand where he though he would always be an employee. His experience and his credentials were unusual and highly marketable in both Shanghai and Kunming. In New Zealand he was not terribly special, but in Kunming he was a "big fish in a small sea."

These are the success stories. Are there returnees who are less successful? Of course, and there is even a word for them. Werner reports that they are called haidai or "seaweed" because they have trouble finding work. So there is risk to returning. There is another group that is also of interest here because they have decided to mitigate the risks by keeping one foot in China and the other in the other passport country. They are called haiou, or “seagulls” and they are frequent travelers between China and Canada, the U.S. or another country. Sometimes this means leaving a spouse and the children in one passport country and working in China.

Pretty messy, isn't it? It's almost impossible to put these people into neat categories and come up with grand theories about why they did what they did. Economics and opportunity certainly played a role but family, conditions in the host country, personal circumstances and the relative benefits and costs of one place over another played an equally important role.

Now it should be said here that a study like Werner's has some important limitations. Werner is not Chinese and is not a master of the language. You can also question the veracity of his informants. I can say from experience that migrants are not always aware themselves of precisely why they emigrated or returned and what factors were most important in that decision-making process. Self-deception is a common and very human flaw.

It's still important to read these studies because whatever their limitations or inaccuracies they make clear that there are many motivations for emigration/immigration and if states are going to make policy, this is information that is genuinely useful. Werner says:

To be successful in attracting these and the Chinese citizens that had left China before them, the Chinese government must look beyond the economic theories of migration to encourage return. In the same way that the Chinese government can‟t rely on economic theories of migration to attract returnees, nations in which Chinese are currently living that are hoping to retain this human capital must also understand their motivations for return migration if they hope to discourage this return.

I think he's 100% right. Economic motivations are easier to manage and so states get lazy (or desperate) and act as though these are the only considerations that need to be taken into account when they adjust their immigration policies. There is a lot of talk in the U.S. , for example, of how people with good academic credentials ought to be given Green Cards automatically when they graduate from a US university. Nice idea but it is not necessarily going to make them want to stay long-term in the U.S. Whether or not they accept depends a lot on other factors like the availability of good work (better perhaps then they could obtain in their home countries), future opportunities (the future state of the economy), an immigrant-friendly social environment, possibilities for family reunification and so on. On the China side, getting their people back may be more a function of actively encouraging their emigrants to maintain strong family and social ties with China while they are outside the country and making them aware on a regular basis of the opportunities to be had at home.

French Elections - Silence Would be Golden

2012-03-07T15:01:00.001+01:00

Two stories from the French media recently where the party in power, pushed by the Far Right, has managed to get itself into all kinds of trouble. Watching this unfold one is very tempted to channel Jacques Chirac who once said this about his allies/adversaries, "Ils ont perdu une bonne occasion de se taire." (They missed a good opportunity to stay silent.)

The first missed opportunity I'd like to mention came from our old friend, Claude Guéant, Minister of the Interior and author of the now infamous "circulaire" against foreign students.

So what did Guéant say this time? In a speech he gave in early February, he stated that: "Contrairement à ce que dit l'idéologie relativiste de gauche, pour nous, toutes les civilisations ne se valent pas." (Contrary to what the left-wing relativist ideology says, for us, not all civilizations are equal.) Naturally, people responded to this by asking the obvious questions, "OK, so how do you rank them, sir?" and "Which civilizations do you think make (or don't) the cut?" And with that we entered very dangerous territory because there are no acceptable answers to those questions that won't drag someone further into the pit. When questioned about it later Guéant reaffirmed his statement and gave examples like the wearing of the burkha or public prayer. It was embarrassing to watch him flailing about trying to find the right "code" to get his very negative message across. Here is a nice bit of reporting on it from TF1.

The second missed opportunity came recently in response to a debate launched by Marine Le Pen concerning meat slaughtered in a fashion that conforms to Islamic tradition and law (halal). At first Sarkozy replied by saying it was "not a problem" and then he seemed to be calling for new labeling laws. Let's be generous and say that his views were evolving when his Prime Minister Fillon fearlessly threw himself into the fray in this interview on Europe1.

Basically Fillon suggested that both Moslems and Jews take another look at their ancestral traditions that "n'ont plus grand-chose à voir avec l'état aujourd'hui de la science, l'état de la technologie, les problèmes de santé." (no longer have anything to do with modern science, technology and health issues.) Needless to say, both groups are highly unamused by his words.

Following Fillon's performance other French politicians prudently kept their distance from this topic. Ironically, it was Dominique de Villepin who said exactly what I was thinking - he lamented that François Fillon "aurait mieux fait de se taire" (would have done better to stay silent.)

If they are incapable of raising the level of the debate and they continue to happily bumble into traps set for them by the Far Right then there is no hope for them and they will deserve everything they get when the election finally rolls around later this year.

Migration between Highly Developed Countries

2012-03-05T15:07:00.001+01:00

K left a comment in response to Friday's post about global migration. I think we both have the same curiosity about why people migrate from one highly developed country to another - from the US to the EU and vice versa, for example.

You might think that I would be in a good position to talk about this because I did it. Yes and no. My experience is not atypical but it doesn't come close to covering the diverse motivations of all the other migrants I've had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with over the years. Another difficulty when it comes to tackling this topic is that so much is based on the perceptions that people in highly developed countries have of each other and their respective countries. Before people migrate they are starting from a subjective view of their home country and projecting themselves into a possible future in another place that they think will be better for diverse reasons. But "better" is relative. Clearly when a person moves from one modern country to another he is not thinking, "Will I have enough to eat there?" "Will there be running water?" or "Are there ATM's?" He/she is definitely looking for something above and beyond satisfying the most basic needs.

Nonetheless, I think there is overlap between their motivations and those of their brethen who migrate from low to medium development countries: a better future for their children, security, opportunity. For that reason I would resist any characterization of these people as "spoiled global elites." At the risk of sounding un-American, I argue that there are things, tangible and intangible, that may matter much more to some then money or a glorious career.

I spent part of this weekend thinking about how to answer K in a concrete way and I came up with a few themes that seem to come up very often when I talk to migrants from the US to the EU, or from the EU to the US, or from either of those places to Asia. This is what I've gleaned from just talking to people I've met and come to know over the past twenty years or so. You may disagree with the items on my list and some of what I report here might irritate you. Bear in mind that these are things people have told me based on their perceptions of where they came from, where they wanted to go and why they landed on one shore as opposed to another. They are not necessarily objectively true (most preconceived ideas aren't). In some cases, the reasons people had for leaving home are so personal that they say next to nothing about the home or host country and everything about that person's particular (often very difficult) situation.

Family: It is more and more common for people to have families that include multiple nationalities and members living in many different countries. It can happen very rapidly. In my own family in THIS generation alone for the first time we now have family members on two continents and three countries with three different nationalities. More importantly, we are in constant contact with each other via email, Facebook and the like. This is something that my grandparents (or my spouse's grandparents) would have found inconceivable. We are talking about intercultural marriages (of which there are an enormous number between EU and North Americans) and the children of these unions and their children. It's not just about having multiple passports, it's about having multiple close connections (blood or marriage ties) with people in other countries. I have met any number of people born on one side of the Atlantic who activated a citizenship from a parent or grand-parent in order to spend some time in the other country (US/Canada or the EU).

Established Expatriate Communities: A migrant from the US to France is walking into history - not just French history but American history. France has been a destination for Americans since before the American Revolution. Those who come here today are following in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway and others. This is a well travelled path. There are others. Today, Americans can find vibrant expatriate communities in the UK, Germany, Japan and Canada. Other developed countries have very similar migration paths to other developed countries. France, for example, has a very active expatriate community in Japan, the UK and the United States (check out California). Like migrants from developing countries these channels are very important when it comes to drawing people to a particular place.

Similar Standards of Living: These days a middle-class person in France or Germany lives just as well as a middle-class American or Canadian. Yes, there are country differences but the basics are there. Moving to another developed country does not mean deprivation or a very radical change in one's standard of living. If you had a car in Germany, you can have a car in the U.S. If you owned a house in the U.K. you can own a house in France. Basic consumer goods are readily available in all these places.

Relative Differences in Living Standards: Here is it where begins to get really subjective. Standards of living may be similar in all highly developed countries but every country has its perceived strong and weak points. Often these are semi-tangible and cannot be measured in monetary terms. One issue I've seen come up again and again is personal safety. Some of the Brits I've talked to have the perception that France or Denmark would be much safer places to live. Almost every European I've conversed with had the perception that the U.S. was downright dangerous. These perceptions matter a great deal because people actually make migration decisions based on them. It can be as simple as perceiving that Country X is a better place to raise children then Country Y or the home country.

Cultural Capital: This is even more subjective and involves the accumulation of cultural capital, often to gain status. I realize that this sounds terribly elitist but it's true. Living in a foreign country for a time or being widely traveled with the ability to speak multiple languages is usually perceived positively. It can be a means by which a migrant from a developed country gains status relative to the sedentary monolingual person in the home country. The "bump" depends on the country of origin and the country of residence. Americans who go to France and live for awhile, for example, get to write books that sell very well. Same with the U.K. residents in France. French residents of Japan or certain cities in the U.S. seem to benefit from a similar halo effect. This is to be handled with caution because it can also provoke jealousy and resentment.

Opportunities: Sometimes the credentials from the home country sell better in another developed country. France is filled with engineering graduates and, depending on the school, that degree may not buy as much opportunity in France or the EU as in a country like Canada or Australia. An American with a liberal arts degree from a medium-level American university might be better off working abroad as a teacher, for example. He retains a certain amount of status, puts his degree to good use, gets foreign experience and avoids the unemployment lines at home. Credentials can be translated more or less but the real differences are in the markets and some degrees and specialities can be a worth a lot more outside the home country.

Escape: This is more common then many people realize. There are people who have got themselves into serious trouble in their home countries: jail, alcohol or drug abuse, failed marriages and other family problems, business failure. They want a new life and migrating to another developed country can offer that. Alcoholics Anonymous refers to this as "pulling a geographic." This is another one that seems to be universal - I've met both French and Americans who have done this.

Political or Social Climate: I've never seen this be the sole reason people from developed countries migrate but it is a factor. Some people strongly disagree with the direction of politics in the home country and are unhappy enough about it to want to leave. During the Vietnam War, for example, many Americans moved to Canada. In other cases it has more to do with the social climate. I've talked to French of African or North African origin who are also eyeing Canada or the U.S. because they perceive that there would be less discrimination there. African-Americans have a long history of moving to France because, quite frankly, they felt (and some people I've talked to in more recent times still think this is true) they have a higher status and better treatment in France as opposed to the U.S. Most recently, I've talked to some Americans visiting who are deeply concerned about the political gridlock in the U.S. and who wonder if the country could become financially and socially unstable.

I'll stop there because this post is getting very long. I'd love to get your feedback and ideas about this and if anyone has links to studies about migration from one developed country to another, I would be most grateful if you could post them in the comments section.

Gallup World Poll: The Many Faces of Global Migration

2012-03-02T18:20:00.001+01:00

This is a great read. A lot of what we read about migration consists of "after the action" reports. We wait until the dust settles and then try to figure what happened. This is one of the first proactive reports I've read that tries to measure how many people are contemplating migration and how many actually do it. The Many Faces of Global Migration came out of world polls that Gallup has been conducting since 2005 in over 150 countries. For this report they polled/interviewed 750,000 people. Here are a few of their findings:

Out of a world population of around 7 billion people, 630 million want to move permanently to another country.
A much larger percentage, 1.1 billion adults, in the world want to go work and live in another country temporarily.
As many as 500 million people will be forced to migrate to other countries because of severe environmental problems in their home countries.

After reading these numbers, please tell Claude Gueant to relax - of the 630 million people who want to move permanently, only 48 million of them have plans to move in the next year or so.

How strong is the desire to migrate and what regions are likely to have large numbers of emigrants?

The desire to migrate is clearly strong in sub-Saharan Africa but the numbers are down from previous years, from 38% to 33% of adults in that region in 2011. Same trend in Latin America where the percentage of adults wishing to migrate dropped from 23% to 20% and in South-East Asia from 12% to 9%. The EU is steady at 20% and North America (U.S. and Canada) is also holding at 10%.

And where do these people want to go? Not surprisingly, North America and the EU are top destinations: 188 million and 178 million respectively.

The most interesting part of the report for me was a section they called "Personal Gains and Losses from Migration." They evaluated the experiences of long-term migrants in 15 European countries between 2009 and 2010 and they matched them with people in their home country who had the same demographic profile. The idea was to determine how much these migrants really gained from their migration journey. Did they think they did better in the EU or would they have had similar lives if they had stayed home? That is a darn good question.

Gallup found that the gains and losses that migrant long-timers experience largely
depend on the level of human development in their home countries. The bigger the
development gap between their home countries and highly developed European Union
countries, the bigger the likely gains and losses for these migrants.

So...

Long-timers who moved to the European Union from countries with medium and
low human development see sizeable gains in their evaluations of their current lives.
However, at the same time, long-timers from medium and low development
countries are no better off when it comes to their expectations of how their future
lives would be had they stayed home....their perceptions of living comfortably and optimism about standard of living are lower. One possible explanation is that migrants’ expectations about their living standards rose when they moved to their new country

They see gains but are not optimistic about their own future compared to what they might have had. Their optimism is reserved for their children who they believe will be better off in the host country.

I was a bit disappointed here. It is such a good question and I think they could have done a much better job in the report of developing the topic further. And what about migrants from high development countries? No mention of them but surely there is something to say, if only to state that they found no difference at all between their lives as migrants and their unrealized lives in the home country.

If any of you do read the report, I would love to get your take on it.

The Path to French Citizenship: Small Steps

2012-03-01T12:31:00.001+01:00

This morning my spouse and I, having gathered all the papers for his CNF (Certificat de nationalité française), went down to the Tribunal de grande instance de Versailles. I'm not sure how to translate that but let's just call it the courthouse. To understand more about the French legal system and where the Tribunals sit in respect to other courts, Wikipedia has this entry which I thought was very clear and understandable.

Our business was completed very quickly. I beeped on my way through security because I had a pile of coins in my pocket (train fare) that I had forgotten and so I was taken aside for a more complete check. Then we took the elevator to the reception desk, got a number, and within a few minutes we were installed in an office and presenting our papers to the charming and very helpful young lady charged with such matters. As I watched the different papers being passed across the desk, I asked my spouse if he had duplicates at home. Some of the birth certificates were quite lovely, hand-written with beautiful calligraphy.

Since she was so pleasant and helpful I decided to ask about something that has been bothering me for some time. I'll take this as an opportunity to tell a good story that you might find entertaining.

When I was married back in 1990 at the Mayor's Office in Courbevoie, the French bureaucracy and I got off to a bad start. For a reason I no longer remember, my spouse decided to send me (newly arrived immigrant with limited French) down to the Mayor's office to apply for a marriage license. It was a nightmare for them and for me. They asked all kinds of questions like my mother's profession that I just didn't have the vocabulary to answer. The low point however came when they asked about my future spouse's father and I replied that he was a retired military officer. They then wanted to know his rank and if he had any decorations to which I replied (truthfully) "Général" and "Légion d'honneur."

How to describe their reaction? Disbelief, surely, and some amusement. I was sent on my merry way, feeling very foolish. So when I got home I called my future spouse (in tears) and he called his father straightaway. His father in turn called the Army and they sent someone down in person to straighten this out. The day after we received a phone call from the Mayor's office with an apology and an assurance that if we needed anything more, we should contact them immediately.

The wedding went off without any further problems. My father-in-law wore his uniform and I seem to recall that they read off the entire list of his decorations (and it was a really long list). There was a lot of vigorous hand-shaking at the end of the ceremony and I learned that the formal way to address my father-in-law was "mon général." It was only some time after the wedding that we looked at the Livret de Famille that we received that day and discovered that they had misspelled the name of the city of my birth, Seattle. It was a minor error (I'm sure that the people at the Courbevoie Mayor's office in the year 1990 probably had never heard of such a place) and we were a bit reluctant to go down there and annoy them again (in spite of the phone call I did not get the impression that we were the staff's favorite people). So we let it go and said that we would get it fixed eventually.

So here we are 22 years later and, given that I am going to apply for citizenship, now seems like a good time to take care of it. So I asked about it and the young lady agreed with me that it should be fixed sooner rather then later. We need to contact the Tribunal de grande instance de Nanterre and she gave us the number.

One step forward and one step back. I will be glad, however, to finally get it fixed. As I grow older, it seems almost certain that my final resting place will be here - most likely in a small village in the Limousin. I'd like to know that both the official French records and the entry on the family tomb will proudly (and correctly) show the place of my birth: Seattle, Washington, United States of America.

UNDP and World Bank Reports on Human Development

2012-02-29T09:08:00.003+01:00

Since 1990 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published a yearly report on the state of human development in the world. Starting from a pre-defined set of indicators the UN gathers information from a variety of sources to determine how individual countries are doing and how the world overall is progressing (or not). They have a very cool map here where you can call up an indicator like healthcare spending and search their database to see how different countries in the world stack up.

Their 2011 Human Development Report is out and you can download a copy from their website in a wide variety of languages. Their emphasis this year is on "Sustainability and Equity" - not just for the living but for the yet to be born:

This year we explore the intersections between environmental sustainability and equity, which are fundamentally similar in their concern for distributive justice. We value sustainability because future generations should have at least the same possibilities as people today. Similarly, all inequitable processes are unjust: people’s chances at better lives should not be constrained by factors outside their control. Inequalities are especially unjust when particular groups, whether because of gender, race or birthplace, are systematically disadvantaged.
Sustainable human development is the expansion of the substantive freedoms of people today while making reasonable efforts to avoid seriously compromising those of future generations.

The World Development Report 2012 from the World Bank is good one to read in conjunction with the UNDP report. Their focus this year is on "Gender Equality and Development." As much as we like to cite extraordinary progress in developed countries to reduce gender inequality, women are still "systematically disadvantaged" in many parts of the world. Here is Ana Revenga explaining why this is not just an issue of basic fairness (equity) but an economic issue:

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How U.S. Tax Law Impacts Non-U.S. Citizens

2012-02-28T11:39:00.001+01:00

I've already talked a little bit about this in this post, The Consequences of Being a U.S. Person but I thought a recap would be useful since there are some new developments.

This is the situation in a nutshell: people who have a connection to the U.S. but who are not U.S. citizens still have reporting and tax obligations to the American Internal Revenue Service. A very common example would be a migrant who moves to the U.S. to live and work temporarily or permanently. Let's say, someone from Germany who is working at an American company in Boston. That person, once defined as a U.S. person because he resides in the U.S., must report his or her worldwide income to the U.S. government: interest income from his accounts in Germany, for example, or rent on a property in the home country. Yes, these must be reported on the American tax forms. In addition, this person from Berlin who is living in Boston is also required to file an FBAR (Foreign Bank Account information) with the U.S Treasury department if the sum of the foreign (local to the German but foreign to the U.S.) accounts exceeds a certain amount (10,000 US or 7,500 Euros). This is not a joke - the U.S. is deadly serious about it and is it not something that migrants in the U.S. or anyone who has a connection to the U.S.can afford to ignore. The fine for not filing an FBAR and reporting those accounts to the U.S. government is 10,000 USD per year that person did not file that form. Be warned, the IRS is collecting those penalties. Failure to file for three years could net that German a 30,000 USD fine even if he owed no taxes.

All this was true even before the U.S. Congress passed a law called FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). However, under this law the German bank of the German living in the U.S. must now report that account to the U.S. government if it exceeds a certain amount. Germany is one of five countries that has struck a deal with the U.S. government to implement this law so any hope that the German had of ignoring the whole business is pretty much gone. In addition the U.S. government is offering these countries some sort of reciprocity which means that the German's U.S. banks may soon be required to report on his or her U.S. accounts to the German government.

If you are in this situation, then you should probably get some professional help to get it sorted out.

If that were not enough, there are two other things to be aware of. The first is a new form (required under the FATCA law) to be filed with the 2011 U.S. tax declaration. This form 8938 is a declaration of foreign (foreign to the U.S) assets. So, the hypothetical German that I'm using will have to file 1. a U.S. tax declaration on all income earned worldwide, 2. an FBAR listing all his German bank accounts and 3. Form 8938 listing his German bank accounts AND all other assets in Germany including his house or apartment, pension funds and so on. The fact that these things existed before the German moved to the U.S. is irrelevant. By spending time on U.S. soil he or she became a U.S. person and must comply. In some cases, even non-U.S. citizens who are not resident in the United States might have to file this form. See this excellent post, Form 8938 Can Apply to Non-Resident Aliens, on Phil Hodgen's blog.

The second development that may impact that German is how his German bank is going to react to the news that they are now going to have report his account information to the U.S. government. What we are seeing right now are European banks closing the home country accounts of their nationals living in the U.S. This came in from Switzerland, Swiss Expats Caught in Middle of U.S. Tax Conflict. Some Swiss banks have even decided that banking with anyone with a connection (however remote) to the U.S. is simply too dangerous. This includes Swiss citizens who have a child studying at a U.S. university. Will other European banks follow suit? Hard to know but there is a certain logic to it. Why keep as a client someone who is going to cost you money even if that person is a national? It's not as if these people have to live in the U.S., right? Basically, a U.S. connection has become a problem to be solved (and frankly it really hurts to write that) even for people who are not U.S. citizens.

And that brings me to my final point. As a member of the American diaspora, I can do something about this. I may not have very effective representation but I can and do vote in U.S. elections. My hypothetical German (and any other migrant to the U.S., not to mention the millions of people with U.S. connections) doesn't have that and that makes the situation all the more outrageous. This is "Taxation without Representation"and it is grossly unfair and completely contrary to U.S. interests in the world. Do Americans want foreigners to pull their money out of the U.S. or their children out of U.S. universities? Is the goal to punish migrants who want to live and work in the U.S. by making a grab for their home country assets and bank accounts? That may not have been the intention of U.S. lawmakers but it is the outcome. I've said it before and I will keep repeating it: this is not going to end well for anyone.

Breeder Documents

2012-02-27T13:35:00.001+01:00

I first came across this term when I was exploring the different methods at our disposal to prove citizenship. At first glance, I thought it meant "license to reproduce." Believe me, it's nothing like that. But what they really are is pretty interesting and of concern to all of us.

A very loose definition of Breeder Document would simply be: a document that allows you to obtain other documents. A birth certificate is probably the most common one because it establishes all sorts of things: that you were born (good to know), where and when, and who your parents were. That document can be matched against existing law in the country where you live to allow you to obtain other documents like a driver's license, an identity card, a voting card, a national health card and even a certificate of nationality. In a lot of countries, if a person never goes beyond the national borders, it's possible that he or she may never have to have one. In the first 20 years of my existence living in the U.S., it was completely superfluous (even for travel to Canada). It only became necessary when I applied for a passport. For those who do travel and, most importantly, for international migrants, this is often an indispensable document. Applying for a visa may just require a passport but most countries want a little more information (the documents behind that passport) before granting you residency or citizenship.

Now this seems like an entirely reasonable request on the part of the receiving state but it assumes that the receiving country trusts your home country to have accurately recorded the birth and is now willing to certify that you are that person by issuing the document and putting an official seal on it. Think about that for a moment - your ability to establish your identity is only as good as the trust that your host country places in your sending country and its documentation.

So do states really trust each other when it comes to breeder documents? It depends. There is a cost to not trusting. Just imagine if every birth certificate presented by a potential migrant from Canada to France was considered suspect and other documents or even an investigation were required before any of these documents were accepted as legitimate. Think of how much trouble the French authorities would have to go to (not to mention the time and money involved) to be 100% sure. Think of how annoyed the sending state would be if they were asked to justify every document. Not a very diplomatic move either since it does kind of imply that the host country thinks the sending country is inefficient or corrupt. And what would be the benefit? That the receiving state might catch a very small percentage of identity thieves? I imagine most states have done a rough cost/benefit analysis and adjust their trust level according to what they know (or assume) about the other state.

That they probably do this does not mean that they aren't thinking about more cost effective ways to tackle the problem. The EU issued this statement in 2009 concerning the reliability of breeder documents within the EU. They implied that they were not even sure that member states should be trusting each other. If that's indeed true then what about countries outside the EU?

And that brings us straight to a country with serious issues in this area: the United States. While Americans are very concerned (for security and immigration reasons) about false documents used to enter or stay on American soil, other countries have reasons to be a bit nervous about breeder documents coming from entities within the United States. According to the 2011 MPI report, A New Architecture for Border Management:

In the United States, breeder documents are issued at the state or local level: there are 16,000 different offices that can issue birth certificates, and over 14,000 different kinds of birth certificates.
There are no common requirements and little consistency among them, and thus such documents are highly susceptible to forgery.

Please note how carefully worded those two sentences are. The first is a statement of fact and the second is a statement of fact with mitigating language tacked onto the end. If we translate, basically what they are saying is the entire U.S. mechanism for producing breeder documents is decentralized to the point of absurdity and these documents cannot necessarily be trusted. They are implying both inefficiency and a strong possibility of outright fraud. If any of you have another interpretation, I'd be happy to hear it.

This is a situation worth watching. In all my time abroad I have never had anyone in France, Japan or any other country question my documentation from the U.S. Up until now American citizens who travelled or lived abroad seem to have been given the benefit of the doubt; beneficiaries of a "halo effect" conferred because the U.S. was perceived as an efficient, developed country with a certain amount of prestige and status in the world. To the extent that people become aware of certain idiosyncrasies in the way the U.S. manages its internal affairs, we could see a bit more suspicion of Americans abroad and their documentation. It could lessen the value of a U.S. passport and diminish the protection U.S. citizens receive when they travel. It could also make it more difficult for U.S. citizens to get work or residency status in other countries.

Clearly we are not there yet and I should clarify here that there are many countries with worse processes than the U.S. Nevertheless, the next time you hear Americans complaining about document fraud, "illegals" and the like in the United States, just remember that the U.S. is, in fact, the "tallest midget in the room."

Perceptions of an Overseas Voter

2012-02-25T13:50:00.001+01:00

To understand why the United States is trying so hard to chase down overseas Americans for taxes one need only look at this graph prepared by Senator Jeff Sessions' staff and reprinted in the Weekly Standard.

Rather frightening, isn't it? Yes, America’s per capita government debt is worse than Greece. This means while all of the countries on the chart are desperate for revenue the U.S. leads the pack.

The political process is the means by which such problems are faced and managed. Or not, as the case may be. Living outside the U.S. I'm at a disadvantage here when it comes to homeland politics since I am only getting an echo of the political debates going on right now over what to do about the American national debt. To those who argue that I could be perfectly well-informed if I would just regularly read the American newspapers, I would counter that it is not nearly enough. I read these articles in a vacuum. If I were living in the U.S. I imagine that this topic would be something I would discuss with friends, family and colleagues who would give me their points of view and share resources where we could all get more information. I'd be reading the daily local paper to know what my Senators and Representatives were up to. I'd be listening to the radio on the ride into work. I'd have a much better idea how my fellow Americans feel about what is going on around them and how it impacts them because I'd be swimming in the same waters. Since I don't have any of that here, I read the articles in the American media almost as if I were a foreigner. It really does seem that distant.

But here's the thing. I vote. The very efficient folks at King County Election will be sending a ballot this year to my address in France. I even have a voter registration card that I received a few days ago with my French address and U.S. contact information if I have any questions or a problem (partially written in Kanji by the way). And though King County seems to be in the know, I was a bit surprised to realize that neither of my senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell seem to be aware of their constituents from the Pacific Northwest who are living outside the U.S. (yes, they exist and I've met some of them in both Japan and France). When I go to the "Contact me" section of their sites, the only overseas constituents they seem to recognize are American military personnel abroad. I suppose I could pretend I still live in the state of Washington but that seems dishonest. Quite a conundrum, isn't it? I did sign up for both their newsletters and was quite amused that Patty Murray's form asked for an address but had no provision (unless I was military) for a foreign address. I finally just put in my French address and selected "Washington State." We'll see if her staff notices.

And yet, Washington state is, according to the book Leaving America, an important overseas voter state (along with Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio) with over 200,000 overseas voters in each of those states registered to vote locally. In a close election, politicians in these states could quite conceivably win or lose based on how overseas Americans decide to vote in 2012. And, to be quite frank with you, with the MOVE act which makes it much easier for overseas citizens to vote, the range of issues on the table today that have got us a bit riled up (citizenship-based taxation, FATCA and the like) and the existence of non-profit organizations like the Overseas Vote Foundation which has an on-line platform that makes it very easy for us to register, it's quite likely that more and more of us will choose to exercise our right to vote in the U.S. in 2012. This means that homeland voters and politicians in some states might just get a nasty surprise in November.

My purpose here is not to threaten people or our elected representatives in the homeland. Rather what I would like to propose is a deal that would make this situation work a little better to everyone's benefit. On my side I am painfully aware that I am not as aware of homeland issues as I could be and I promise to make a special effort during the ramp-up to the 2012 election to get as much information as I can to be able to vote responsibly. On the homeland side what I would like to see are people and politicians meeting us halfway. A good start would be to stop vilifying overseas Americans in the media. Every article or comment we read that labels us "disloyal" and "tax evaders," for example, just makes us paranoid and turns us into single-issue voters (just vote against anyone who supports FATCA :-). A second step would be an acknowledgement that we exist and it might be worth everyone's time to improve the dialogue with the 6 million Americans (civilians) outside the U.S. We are the "domestic abroad" and maybe we have something to bring to the debates going on inside the U.S. if people would suspend judgement and just listen for a moment or two.

The United States is facing some serious challenges right now. Going back to the graph at the beginning of this post, this is a very serious situation. It is not unreasonable, in my view, that all Americans be part of the solution. To be very clear (and here I diverge from the views of some other overseas Americans) I am not even against the idea of contributing financially to the resolution of homeland problems.

But, if that is what the homeland is asking of me, then I need to feel that I am a part of the nation regardless of where I live - that I have, not just a vote and representation, but effective representation, where my views and my interests are taken into account. And I will be honest with you, I don't feel that at all. This really is THE issue for me. It's not taxes. Taxes are the price of civilization. But if you want me to support American civilization (the nation) then I need you to acknowledge that I and 6 million other people are still a part of it.

If this isn't possible, if no one wants to go to the effort, if all homeland Americans want to do is punish all 6 million of us for the "sin" of living abroad by double-taxing us to extinction while making it difficult for us to have a voice, then our U.S. citizenship is worth very little. If you add to that a certain rejection on the part of the nation then, rationally, this is a citizen/state relationship which does neither of us any good. You don't need us yelling at you from across the oceans, surprising you when we actually dare vote and tip local elections, and hurting U.S. interests in our host countries. On our side we don't need you pretending we don't exist and yet passing laws that impact us behind our backs and then ignoring us completely when we protest.

So what will it be, folks? Do we try to work this out or do we give up on the basis of "irreconciliable differences" and negotiate an amicable divorce on terms we can all live with?

DEBTOCRACY // ΧΡΕΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ

2012-02-24T00:11:00.000+01:00

I stayed up late last night watching Debtocracy, a documentary produced by Greeks about the Greek debt crisis. It was released in mid-2011 and has been so well received that the producers are preparing another called Catastroika to be released some time this year.

We live in an age where information is abundant but knowledge and reflection is in short supply. It's easier to swim in the swallows of a few well-known Internet sites because the blue water just seems too dark and too deep. Based on that information, gained cheaply and with little effort, we judge and we have the arrogance to think that we judge rightly because we read a few one-page analysis on Der Spiegel, Le Monde or The New York Times.

Some of what I have read on such sites about the Eurozone crisis troubles me because, while the root causes of the situation are complex, they are all too often reduced to a simple morality tale: the "disciplined" versus the "undisciplined," the "hard-working" versus the "lazy," and "honest taxpayers" versus "tax evaders" with the Greeks cast as the villains (les coupables) of the piece.

If we were a bit more honest and had a better grasp of history we might recall that Greece is hardly the first country on this planet (and certainly not the first in Europe) to have had this problem. Some of the countries that seem very happy to pass moral judgement on them today (and seem mighty reluctant to help them now) once had their own debt problems. Correct if I'm wrong but weren't France, Germany and others also members of this club? Some were even "serial defaulters" who walked away when the situation was simply impossible and there was no other way out.

We are living in difficult times. No country is immune. We are all fearful for ourselves and for our families. It is human to assign blame. If nothing else it salves our own uneasy consciences because, quite frankly, we and our governments bear a great deal of responsibility for what is. Greece did not create the present situation all on her own; she had a great deal of "help" from other European member-states and the U.S.

I don't know of any cure for being human but there is one way we can mitigate some of our least attractive traits: we can suspend judgement and listen to the other side of the story. This is what Debtocracy aims to do - present another view- and I think it does it very well, very pursuasively. I learned a great deal (Iraq and its "odious debt," for example) and I think the only certitude that I had before I watched it that has stayed with me is this: peace of mind and prosperity cannot be purchased through the punishment and impoverishment of others. Europe made this mess and either we are "solidaire" in solving it or we are nothing.

Debtocracy International Version par The_Press_Project

(The film is in several languages, mostly Greek but also English, French and Spanish. If you are fortunate enough to understand all of them you can muddle through without the subtitles. If not, pass your cursor to the right-hand portion of the screen to find the subtitles in the language of your choice.)

The Army of Gabon Recruits

2012-02-23T18:27:00.003+01:00

Just posted by a friend and former colleague on Facebook. This is a recruiting video for the Army of Gabon. I thought it was excellent.

The King's Stable and the Way of the Squire

2012-02-23T15:42:00.001+01:00

Last Sunday the younger Frenchling and I went down to the Grande Ecurie du roi (The Big Stable of the King) for a visit and a show. This was the first time I'd ever been inside though I've passed by and admired the building many times over the past few years.

The King's Stable was built between 1678 and 1682 for two purposes: a stable for the king's saddle horses and a training center for young people from the nobility destined to be officers in the royal army.

Today it is a beautifully maintained monument that still has a purpose akin to what it was in the past - it is the present home of the L'Académie du spectacle équestre (The Academy of Equestrian Arts). I haven't ridden a horse since I was a child and never had any formal training so I can only describe what they do from my very uninformed perspective. The show we went to was called La Voie de l’écuyer (The Way of the Squire) and it was a bit of everything - theater, ballet, a tournament, a mock battle, a dance - beautifully choreographed and accompanied by very good classical music (Baroque, I think) and words from the past.

The show began with a quotation that I did not recognize, "La tradition est la deformation d'un message du passé." (Tradition is a deformed message from the past.) and the call was to return to the origin of things to learn their real meaning and context. The first scene was composed of three young women with longbows and they moved slowly enough so that you could see every step, every gesture before they fired at the target. It was impressive and those bows were almost as tall as the women who were wielding them. This was followed by the entry of one of the most beautiful horses I'd ever seen with his rider who ran him through his paces around the arena. Such amazing fluidity of movement and gaits that I didn't know horses had in them. It was very much like watching a ballet - many of the movements seemed unnatural but oh so graceful and precise. Beautiful to watch.

From the l’Académie du spectacle équestre website

The most exciting part came in the middle of the show. Swords. Long and very thin - the kind you see used in modern fencing (and here I am not sure what you would call them in French - les rapières or les épées?). It started with a mock fight between two people in the middle of the arena and then in came a group of horses and their riders. What followed was an exciting, heart in your mouth, mock battle on horseback. They started at one end of the arena with the horses leaping forward and running like hell and the riders slashing at each other and then everyone pulling up just short of the stands. At the very end they formed a circle around one horse ridden by a lovely young woman who tilted her body back, raised her sword in the air, and had her horse spin under her. Faster and faster and faster. Extraordinary.

The rest of the show was just as good. If you have children, you must bring them. If you don't have children, go anyway. The place was packed so reserve here ahead of time. You can visit the stables after the show to ask questions and admire the horses. We learned that the really elegant white ones are Lusitaniens. There were also Criollos and Quarter Horses. A last word - both the stables and the arena were really cold. This doesn't seem to bother the horses one bit but if you're a furless human like me, a warm coat, a hat and gloves would be a good idea.

Lifestyle Migration

2012-02-22T12:02:00.000+01:00

When I first heard that term I really didn't know what to make of it. The term "lifestyle" in English seems to imply something rather frivolous and even pretentious. Something that must be the province of the rich global elite and not within the reach of "regular folks." What I discovered when I looked into it is that this is actually a very broad category into which researchers have poured very disparate people: international retirement migrants, sojourners in India, small entrepreneurs running bed and breakfasts in France, and foreign spouses of nationals.

In Global Migration Governance, Caroline Olivier gives this definition: "The term 'lifestyle migration' is applied to a growing number of migrations that are largely undertaken for lifestyle reasons and which do not fit into the existing policy categories of migration." This basically means anyone who has migrated for reasons other than opportunity and oppression (essentially labor and humanitarian migration). In general these are people who have the means to choose where they want to live based on criteria that have very little to do with economics. It's really not at all about money or landing a better job. Lifestyle migrants are primarily from developed countries and their destinations are either other developed countries or emerging countries. This people are very hard to count since they are often quasi-legal in their countries of residence and very often they don't live abroad full-time. The British are well-known for this. In 2006 it was estimated that one in ten Brits live abroad and 500,000 live part-time outside the UK.

Some of them are even technically "illegal immigrants" and some work under the table teaching their native languages. They seem to be tolerated for the most part because they bring money in at a very low cost to the host countries: a retired American in France on U.S. Social Security is not doing any harm and may even be doing some good since the money is coming from outside France and is being injected into the local economy. Similar reasoning applies to French retirees in Morocco. Some countries have figured this out and offer special programs to draw these migrants in. The "Malaysia My Second Home" program seems to be very popular and the Japanese government was actively promoting at one time "overseas ikigai towns".

This is called "International Retirement Migration" and the reasons behind it seem obvious. However, what about all the other migrants being lumped together as "lifestyle migrants?' In Lifestyle Migration (a book of essays and research on this subject) they offer the following as cases that they think exemplify this phenomenon:

Western Lifestyle Migrants in Varanasi, India
Romance Tourists, Foreign Wives or Retirement Migrants Cross-cultural Marriage in Florence, Italy
A Desire for Difference: British Lifestyle Migration in Southwest France
Taking the Risk: The British in Didim, Turkey

I finished both books feeling very unsatisfied and a bit unsettled. The only thing that these migrants have in common is the fact that they mostly come from developed countries (all social classes and income levels by the way) and are seeking intangible things that cannot be expressed in monetary terms. That does not, in my view, make their motives selfish or suspect - something that I feel is implied in the term "lifestyle." Is there something illegitimate about wanting to stretch one's retirement pension or to raise children in a country that has less crime or a better education system? What about a gay couple who moves to a country where the laws permit them to marry? Can you really reduce this to a lifestyle choice or is it something infinitely more important - the right to be with the person you love and benefit from a legal framework that offers more protection and stability?

The danger of lumping all these people together under a tent that is practically guaranteed to raise the hackles of people in their home countries is the real possibility that these people will be punished: taxed to extinction, forced to give up their citizenship or permanent residency status, or just vilified in the media. The perception of people in the homeland is generally negative - this people are often portrayed as disloyal or selfish or lacking in maturity. In all fairness sometimes this kind of migrant has a discourse that is not terribly kind or understanding of the people back home. It does not help to describe one's life outside the home country as an "escape" or to treat people in the homeland as boring and unenlightened. This is unnecessarily provocative and unfair - moving to India to live in an ashram or to France to start a "gite" does not make anyone morally superior or special. Whenever I fall into this trap I try to remember that I am merely one American among 100,000 other Americans living in France, and I am just one small U.S. person among the millions in Europe and around the world.

So I am hoping that the term "lifestyle migration" goes out of fashion very fast. I don't think it's accurate or useful and it might even be dangerous. The "people who move around" don't need anything that encourages positive or negative stereotypes. What we need is to be "right-sized." We are normal people who are doing normal things (raising families, working jobs, going to school). The only difference is that we just aren't doing those things in our countries of origin. That's all.

ILO Global Employment Trends

2012-02-21T23:48:00.000+01:00

This is a must read. The International Labor Organization has published a report on Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a Deeper Jobs Crisis.

So how are we doing? Well, we are not out of the woods yet. Not even close. They think we are in stage two of a three stage crisis. In stage one we had the shock and then the stimulus which softened the blow. Now we are in stage two where high deficits and sovereign debt are leading to austerity measures. A slow recovery is not helping matters. If there is a second shock there will be second dip in growth and employment with very little money left in government coffers to lift us out.

In the worst case scenario there will be a negative shock in the eurozone (bad debt ) followed by the U.S. (slow growth and loan losses on mortgage portfolios) and perhaps emerging Asia (non-performing loans). Largest impact would be in the EU and the U.S. Latin America and Asia would be more resilient just as they were in the previous shock.

Before the crisis there were 171 million unemployed workers to which we can now add another 27 million. And then there are the 40 million new workforce entrants per year (young people). That's just the jobs picture and doesn't even touch the other issue: a "decent work deficit," jobs that can keep food on the table and a roof over the head of a family. They estimate that we need to create 400 million new jobs over the next decade. For those of you who would prefer not to read pdf's in bed late at night, here is a synopsis by Steven Kapsos, labour economist at the ILO that goes over the figures I've cited above:

ILO is predicting a recovery slowdown and flat employment which will drag down wages everywhere. Less opportunity, low wages, and precarity will drive even more migration. They recommend four courses of action:

Global policy coordination
Regulation of the world financial system to loosen credit for SMEs which create 70 percent of jobs
Stimulus packages targeted to increasing employment
Incentives for the private sector to invest but....
Without putting fiscal stability at risk.

I'm not an economist nor a reader of tea leaves so I can't judge the merits of their recommendations or the accuracy of their predictions. What is clear to me as I watch the ramp up to the 2012 elections in both the U.S. and France is that all this talk of contraception, immigration, flag-waving, saber-rattling and the merits of one civilization over another, is really nothing more then a bread and circus show. If the world economy goes to hell yet again, all this will be pretty irrelevent.

Looking for Work is Work

2012-02-21T10:10:00.000+01:00

And things are looking up. I've been a little more absent the past week because I did succeed in getting interviews - five, to be precise. One was via telephone with a company in Bruxelles and the four others were with French companies here in Paris.

I enjoy interviews. I like the human contact (something you really miss when you are unemployed). Since I've been around the block a few years in this part of the world, I find that I almost always have former colleagues and companies in common with my interviewers. Getting the latest news is always interesting and I come back home with ideas for people and places to contact. It's never a waste of time even when I'm pretty sure I didn't get the job.

As I said before it takes me about an hour to get into town. There is the short walk to the train (RER) station but I know the schedule by heart so I always arrive just in time. From there it's a 20 minute train ride through a very long tunnel and then the train then pops out at Meudon le Fleury and follows the Seine into the heart of the city. Nice view of the Eiffel Tower. I usually get off at Invalides and then I take the metro to whatever neighborhood (arrondissement) I need to be in.

First order of business when I arrive at my destination is coffee. I was really rather startled when I read some people's comments about my having an expresso at a bistro in a previous post. Just goes to show you that context is everything. Let me explain what that means here. Go anywhere in the city, any neighborhood, and there will be small restaurants and bar/tobacco stores. How nice they are really depends on the prosperity of the area. When I was in Neuilly I had coffee at a very tony little place, very clean, nicely dressed waiters and (oh miracle) very clean restrooms. Now that I'm interviewing I am out of those areas and in places like Saint Denis and the Silicon Sentier. Different world in these neighborhoods but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, the western side of Paris and her close suburbs is very pretty but it's almost too pretty to the point of feeling sterile. You can actually find a Starbucks or a McDonalds in that part of town. Nothing against either of those things but, between you and me, I find both expensive and not much value for money.

The place I went to yesterday, on the other hand, was a lot rougher but that was kind of irrelevant because what it lacked in amenities and tourist traps it more than made up for in sheer vibrancy. This neighborhood was hopping with lots of people in the streets (many of them immigrants like me), shops, gaming parlors and little restaurants/bars/tobacco stores. I found a bar next to the metro Château d'Eau in the 10th and sat down to talk to the owner and listen to the conversations going on around me. At the table next to me was a group of musicians. Older men, probably in their late 40's or 50's, talking about possible gigs. Two were African-Americans from the U.S. (sounded East Coast to me), the others were French and African. The conversation toggled between English and French and one other language I didn't recognize.

The owner of this place was a Frenchman of North African origin and he was the sweetest guy. The bar itself had seen better days - the door was repaired with some sort of duct tape and the windows were dirty. The bar itself was impeccably clean. And this is where I had my coffee that morning as I killed 30 minutes before my interview. A couple of remarks about the context. First of all I ordered an expresso because that was all they served. No lattes, no mochas or anything like that. Just a small cup with very strong, very hot, and very black coffee served with a little stick of sugar on the side. So when someone describes to me a world where "expresso" is something you purchase in a tony little cafe in a nice part of town, I have a little moment of dissonance. What? Here, an "expresso" is just standard coffee and it is the cheapest coffee you can buy wherever you are. This place was particularly cheap - 1,4 Euros a cup (less than 2 US Dollars). You can drink it at the bar (something I used to do when we could still smoke inside) or you can sit down. I sat down because I was wearing my "grown-up lady shoes" and my feet hurt. Another thing - at no time on the street or in the bar did I feel unsafe and I couldn't even begin to tell you why.

I try to imagine going into a place that looked like this in one of Seattle's less prosperous neighborhoods and, to be honest, I probably wouldn't. Latent racism on my part? Maybe but when I walked into that bar in Paris yesterday, I was the only female person of European origin there and I didn't get any vibes that I was unusual, unwanted or out of place. Frankly, I've had more hassles in nicer parts of town with the Français de souche trying to pick me up and getting downright pushy about it. I re-read my CV and the job description, slowly sipped my coffee, exchanged smiles and a few words with the owner, went to the bathroom to comb out my hair, came out, thanked him and went about my business.

It was a good interview. The only problem with living in Versailles and looking for work in the city is the commute. One interview means half a day in town - two hours of transport plus two hours of interviewing. This means less time to send out CV's and make cold calls. I'm home today and have to make up for lost time. I did do some late night reading in bed and I'll post later on the day about the new ILO report on global employment. Very interesting reading.

Diasporas and United Nations Staffing Policy

2012-02-20T16:25:00.001+01:00

There is a neat bit of research over on the Not Learning Cantonese in Hong Kong blog.

The blog author, Eric, saw an ad for a position at the United Nations and was rather startled to find that the ad had a strange pre-requisite: "candidates had to be willing to renounce permanent residence status in any country except the country of their nationality." He looked into it a bit further and discovered that this isn't just a quirk that applies to that position in particular, but is actual UN staffing policy.

Read the post, What Diplomats Think of Diasporas: Tracing the History of an Obscure United Nations Staffing Policy, to learn why this policy was put into place. And, yes, there is a strange twist that has to do with the United States' citizenship-based taxation laws...

I agree with Eric that it is blatant discrimination against the "people who move around." Very odd for an international organization. Very much behind the times. Talk about de-valuing the diasporas and calling into question their loyalty and fitness to represent their countries.

H1-B Visas and the Neufeld Memorandum

2012-02-18T12:26:00.002+01:00

I don't generally spend much time delving into the intricacies of U.S. immigration law but I thought this issue was interesting because it touches directly on my field, IT.

The H1-B visa is a work permit program that targets that highly sought after group of skilled migrants (called "travailleurs hautement qualifiés" in French) who work in professions like healthcare, IT, engineering and many others (list here). It is similar to the EU Blue card in the sense that a migrant must first find a position and then it is the future employer who requests the visa from the U.S. government. Though it is good for 6 years (and allows for Green Card status later on), it does not allow family members to come and work as well (unless of course they qualify for their own H1-B visas).

Nevertheless this visa was both sought after and fought over for many years. In times past the quota for each year was reached very quickly. In 2007, for example, the cap of 85,000 for 2008 was reached by April 3, 2007 - a mere 3 days after the program was opened on April 1. What kind of companies were requesting H1-B visas? To no one's surprise, a lot of IT companies were taking advantage of this program: Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro and Microsoft.

Then came the crisis and demand dropped precipitously. How bad was it? It took months for the quotas to be filled instead of weeks or days. As MPI reports in Migration and the Great Recession, legal immigration to the U.S. slowed considerably in those years. (Note to Tea Party and all other anti-immigrant groups in the U.S. - if you want to stop immigration in its tracks, just tank your economy.) 2010 was a bit better but the bloom is off the rose. This article from Forbes India, "The H1B Visa's Fall From Grace," says that there were two other factors that are leading to decreased demand: a steep rise in application fees - it now costs between 3000 to 5000 USD to apply - and increased scrutiny of applications - the Obama administration has, contrary to what the Right in the U.S. is saying, stepped up enforcement of immigration law to a nearly unprecedented degree.

Into this already troubled picture, has marched the U.S. government, specifically the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, with the the Neufeld Memorandum (something similar to a "circulaire" here in France) which aimed to step up enforcement of H1-B immigration and employment law. The issue was the mobility of H1B workers and how IT companies can assign them to different client sites. Something, by the way, that is pretty standard if you are working in an IT service company.

According to this article, in the past it was understood that when an IT worker changed work locations, all the company had to do was file a little form called a Labor Condition Application with the Department of Labor. The Department of Immigration was not informed and had no way of knowing where the worker was actually working based on his or her original H1-B application.

With the Neufeld Memorandum that sets higher standards for investigation of employer/employee relationships combined with greater enforcement, immigration agents are checking out these workers by going to the original site/employer to investigate. If they find that the worker is no longer physically present in that location, they report back that the worker and his/her employer are, shall we say, in an "irregular situation." The seems to be causing everyone to waste a great deal of time and energy. One article I read even said that "the USCIS’s fraud detection national security division may also pay a “friendly” surprise visit to the client company to ensure that the work location and other terms of employment are consistent with the H-1B petition." Oh my. I'm sure that those clients were just THRILLED to get a visit from U.S. immigration.

So what is the impact of all of this? Forbes reports that companies are using different strategies to get around this. Some are simply hiring more U.S. citizens and legal residents or trying for L-1 visas instead since "Visas issued in the L-1 category involve transfers within the same company, and employees do not need to be paid the minimum wage levels of the US, which are much higher than what an employee on an L-1 would be paid." Other IT companies are simply tweaking their off-shoring models and keeping more of their staff at home and doing the work from Bangalore, for example.

Now I am pretty sure that U.S. government did not intend to make the United States less competitive in the global market for worldwide talent. I'm even more sure that they are or will be mightily annoyed by efforts of foreign migrants and multi-national IT companies to work around their rules. But the fact remains that both migrants and companies are rational actors and all of their solutions are quite logical and well within the law. To make matters even worse, I fail to see how anyone is going to benefit from this: certainly not U.S. IT workers who may see a few more jobs available but who will face increased competition from migrants in the U.S. on L-1 visas who are apparently not subject to minimum wage laws, and IT workers in lower-cost locations outside the U.S. It will also hurt migrants who come in with good skills needed by U.S. industry and who, frankly, have other options and other countries that are much more inviting. These people are legal, for heaven's sake, and making them jump through multiple bureaucratic hoops and harassing them in front of their clients is just unbelievably counter-productive and punitive.

In the 2011 MPI report, Shared Challenges and Opportunities for US and EU Immigration Policymakers, they issued this mild warning:

The U.S. has a strong competitive advantage in attracting and integrating the highly skilled... However, analysts argue that the United States is resting on its laurels and that without more active strategies to provide an attractive immigration "package" to the highly skilled, it may lose some of its traditional advantage.

"May lose"?

Sorry, mes amis, it is time to take that sentence out of the possible future and move it firmly into the present tense.

Journée défense et citoyenneté

2012-02-16T17:10:00.000+01:00

In today's mail we received a note from the Defense Ministry addressed to the elder Frenchling reminding her that, as a French citizen who has reached her majority, she is required to attend a "Journée défense et citoyenneté" (National Defense and Citizenship Day).

The draft is long gone but that does not mean that military service (defense of the nation) has been disconnected from citizenship. The JDC is part of an overall effort, a "parcours de citoyenneté," on the part of the state and the military to "informer les jeunes Français sur leurs droits et devoirs en tant que citoyens pour les aider à mieux comprendre le fonctionnement des institutions de leur pays. (Inform young Frenchmen and women of their rights and duties as citizens to help them better understand how their country's institution function.)

The JDC is actually the last step in this process which starts in high school. Sometime during the third and first year, the professors are required to include as part of the program of civic, legal and social education, discussions about national defense, state security and what dangers and challenges exist in the world today. The second step is the census. At the age of 16 all young Frenchmen and women are required to present themselves and be counted at their local mayor's office. This is a pre-requisite for being able to pass the national exams (CAP, BAC, driver's license).

The final step is a one day session for all young men and women who have reached their majority (18 years). The objective of this day is to point out a very important and essential fact:

Les pouvoirs publics et les forces armées agissent chaque jour pour que la liberté puisse exister, sur notre territoire, mais également en Europe et sur d'autres continents.
La JDC est une journée qui permet de rappeler à chacun que cette liberté a un prix. C'est aussi une occasion unique de contact direct avec la communauté militaire, et de découverte des multiples métiers et spécialités, civiles et militaires qu'offre aujourd'hui aux jeunes, la Défense.
The forces of order and the armed forces act every day so that liberty can exist, on our territory, but also in Europe and on other continents.
The JDC is a day to remind everyone that liberty has a price. It is also a unique occasion for direct contact with the military community and to discover the numerous profession and specialties (civilian and military) available today for young people in the armed forces.

You can read more about the actual program here. They provide breakfast and lunch, basic first aid training and even a visit to a military installation in addition to talks about the rights and duties of citizenship and national defense matters. Naturally a bit of recruiting is slipped in there as well.

What do I (US citizen, long-term resident of the French Republic and potential citizen) think of all this? Well, I rather wish that my country had done something similar for me in my formative years. I do not recall (perhaps this has changed) anything quite so comprehensive and clear concerning citizenship being provided as part of my education. And though I did come from a part of the U.S. that has quite a few military installations, the first recruiter or veterans I ever encountered, I met in my second or third year of university. As odd as this may sound the only military personnel I've ever known well have been French: my father-in law (career French Army officer) and the elder Frenchling's god-father who is an officer in the French Navy (lots of uniforms at my wedding). Even with that experience, I would not pretend to know or understand very well what they did or do.

I wish I could participate in one of these National Defense and Citizenship Days. As an observer certainly, who is genuinely curious and interested in what they have to say, but also as a potential citizen who has read the Charte carefully and the part that says: "Tout citoyen concourt à la défense et à la cohésion de la nation" (Every citizen contributes to the defense and the cohesion of the nation).

Happy Valentine's Day - Family Reunification in the EU

2012-02-14T11:12:00.000+01:00

And a very Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. It seems appropriate to use this day and this post to talk once again about family reunification policy in the EU.

Our Franco-American family exists today because of those policies - the right of EU citizens and legal residents to bring those they love to live with them in an EU member state. Today these rights are being challenged in some countries and have been diminished in others even though the EU Directive 2003/86/EC, firmly lays down the EU's position: "Family reunification is a necessary way of making family life possible. It helps to create sociocultural stability facilitating the integration of third country nationals in the Member State, which also serves to promote economic and social cohesion, a fundamental Community objective stated in the Treaty."

As I wrote in my original post last December, it used to be true that many EU states went above and beyond the minimum requirements to comply with the EU directive but in recent years a few have passed more onerous entry requirements (Denmark, for example). Other states are taking note and considering similar actions. It is reported that both the U.K. and the Netherlands are looking closely at Danish policy. What kind of changes are being proposed? Education and income requirements, pre-entry tests (designed to measure the capacity of the person to assimilate), long waits for processing, application fees and "proof of attachment" to the host country are all possibilities.

In response to this flagrant disregard for EU policy the EU is holding a consultation. They say they want to hear from all the stakeholders in this policy before they take action: migrants and migrant rights organizations, family-members of EU citizens or legal residents wishing to come to the EU, member-states and even other states outside the EU. Yes, the last have an interest in this too. Countries of origin sometimes see other state's liberal family reunification policies as quite dangerous to their interests - it can diminish remittances, help migrants to integrate in the host country (not necessarily a good thing from their point of view), and reduce the likelihood that their people will one day return to the home country.

To get a good idea for the issues around this topic, have a look at the MIPEX blog and Thomas Huddleston's slides from the webinar they held late last year:

How to Respond to the EU Family Reunion Consultation - Webinar slides of 7 December 2012

View more PowerPoint from Migrant Integration Policy Index

I've heard many complaints about the EU being too bureaucratic and not responsive to the wishes and opinions of EU people. Well, they do seem serious about getting feedback on this so I strongly urge everyone with an interest in this topic (and I think just about everyone is concerned since you never know who you might fall in love with) to use this opportunity well and wisely. The deadline is March 1, 2012. Contact details are here. They accept contributions via both email and regular mail.

Finding a Job in France - Tips, Links, and Resources

2012-02-13T08:11:00.000+01:00

Looking for a job is a little like dealing with a dysfunctional dating service. Companies are looking for the perfect candidate (un mouton à cinq pattes) and you are looking for the perfect company with the job of your dreams. Matchmaking is tough. There are so many places to look and make contact even before you actually get together and start the interview dance. Here are a few suggestions for how to go about it in France. I work in IT but I'm sure some of what I have to say applies to other sectors.

First step is to get your CV and your lettre de motivation (cover letter) together.

Curriculum vitae: You must have a CV in French and it must be in good French with no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. I saw a video recently done by a recruiter and she was very clear - basic mistakes will get that CV tossed in the bin faster then you can say "Camembert." This site has some good tips and the basic format. The good news is that putting your marital status, number of children and so on is going out of style. All the CVs I've seen recently have dropped this information. Photo is up to you but I wouldn't include one myself. Having a CV in English or another language is useful too but remember that even if you are targeting French subsidiaries of foreign companies, the HR managers and staff are usually locals. If you are coming from Germany they will probably not question the fact that you speak German but they will wonder what your level in French is. I'd prepare the French one first and have it checked by a native speaker not only for errors but also for cultural appropriateness. My sense is that formality and a certain modesty still prevail here. An American CV that describes you as the hottest thing since the moon landing tends to strike an off-key note when read by a French HR person or manager. Once the French one is ready, then write up the English or other language one.

Cover letter: The cover letter should also be formal and exquisitely polite. Some examples here. Yes, they really do use formal endings like, "je vous prie d’agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués." which translates to something like "Please accept, Madame/Sir, the expression of my very highest regards." Remember that a "Madame" always goes before a "Monsieur" whether it is about who goes through the door first or who gets to be saluted first in a letter. Chivalry is alive and well in the Hexagon.

Where to Look: If you're applying from outside France, I'd start with two resources: EURES, the EU Job Mobility Portal and the Pôle emploi international. The latter is a branch of the French (un) employment office and the site is destined for French who want to work in other countries and for foreigners interested in jobs in France or the EU. It's an excellent site with good links to other job sites for France and other EU states. Once you've done that you can start looking at resources in France. Here are a few ideas if you work in IT:

Job boards: Les Jeudis, Monster (France) and Indeed.
Professional Networking sites: If you are in IT I'm sure you're already on LinkedIn but you should definitely also register with the French one which is called Viadeo. Some jobs appear on one but not the other. My experience is that French HR people often look at Viadeo before they search for your LinkedIn profile. Start building your French contact list as soon as possible since you will need it later.
Recruitment companies: Michael Page International (good folks), Progressive, Computer Futures. Neumann International has a page with many IT recruitment companies here in France if you want a more extensive list.
Companies: Almost all the big IT names (Dell, Microsoft, HP) have a presence in France and they all have an on-line service where you can register your CV. To find out more about companies that might interest you, check out the AFCI (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Kompass. Also think about the Mayor's offices - they often have a section of their websites devoted to helping local businesses find people.

How to Get Noticed: I think that it was K that pointed out that just emailing CVs and cover letters doesn't generally do the trick. He's half right - in the past I have found work by doing just that and only that. This time around, it's not enough - the job market is simply too tight right now. So, once you have a presence and your CV is out there circulating, then you need to start doing the real work. First of all get your pitch in French ready. If you have a French friend, ask him/her to help you. It needs to be good and it needs to be short and sweet. Often you have just a few brief moments to make an impression and they won't have much patience for someone struggling to express him or herself. Once you've done that here are some suggestions for the next steps:

Call recruitment companies: Don't just send your CV. Whenever possible, call first. Yes, some of them will blow you off but some will reply favorably. If you get a favorable answer and they invite you to send your CV, get a name so you have a real person to send it to and not just a generic mailbox. After you have sent the CV and cover letter, wait a day and call again to be sure they got it and to initiate contact with a human.
Follow-up: With the job boards where all you have is a generic email, go ahead and send your CV, then wait a few days (I usually give it a week) and then either send a follow-up email or call them.
Contacts: Through Linkedin or Viadeo you should have established at least a few contacts in France. Use them. Get them to intercede on your behalf if you can or get them to find you someone who can help.
Refresh your CV: Don't just drop your CV on a site and then wait. You need to go back every two to three weeks and reload your CV into the system. That puts you at the top of the pile. Do this consistently and you stand a much better chance of your CV being read and matched with current job offers.

Interviews: I've never received a job offer without first going through the interview process. French companies tend to be very careful who they hire since it is not easy to fire people here. In some cases I've gone through 6 interviews and a hiring process that took three to four months to conclude. This is not such a big deal if you are already in France but what if you applying from outside France? Accept that in most cases they will want to see you in the flesh eventually so budget for at least one or two plane or train tickets. The other solution is Skype. Invest in a good camera and be proactive by suggesting to them that the first contact be via Skype. Just as you would in your home country, find out something about the company first and practice interviewing with a French friend or colleague. Be prepared for the all too common generic interview question, "So, tell me about your parcours (work experience)..."

And finally a cultural tip: French people like to talk. A lot. They love having a captive audience and they appreciate a good listener. Prepare a few questions of your own and then let them take the lead. You'd be amazed at the number of interviews I went through here in the very beginning where I just let them do the talking and I actually said very little. Believe it or not, I still got the jobs. :-)

Working in France - Some Advice from a Veteran

2012-02-10T11:03:00.000+01:00

I said yesterday that I would write about getting a job and working in France. This is my experience as someone who has worked nearly 15 years in this country, almost all of it in IT, and mostly for French companies (two brief exceptions). Please do not take what I have to say as the final word. I would strongly advise you to talk to as many people as you can who already work here in your sector and to talk to other long-term residents from your country or people who come from countries that are culturally similar to yours - the experience of a Canadian here may differ a great deal from that of a Russian or a Japanese. I will divide this subject up into two posts: General Advice and Links and Resources. One last word, I don't pretend to be an expert on anything and I am perfectly OK with being contradicted or corrected. The purpose here is to share experience - it is not to be right. Sometimes, believe it or not, you learn more by being wrong. So here goes:

Learn the Language: Ok this sounds obvious and you can beat me up later for being condescending but every month I encounter migrants who are frustrated and angry because they have good skills but not a good grasp of the language. Be honest with yourself - perhaps you have taken French classes in school but are you capable of making a cold call in French to a recruitment company or making it through an interview and getting your point across without irritating the people you want to work with? You may even be asked to take a test in written French (I was once asked to do this for a consulting position). These things are not easy in your home country and language and they are doubly difficult in a different context. But here's the good news: the French government invests a great deal of time and money in supporting the French language outside of France. The Alliance Francaise, for example, is a fine organization with chapters all over the world. They will be delighted to help you, the prices are usually reasonable, and the classes are a mixture of the academic and practical. I went to them when I first arrived here and took basic conversation classes. You can also get a tutor. My best advice is to get a native speaker who does not speak your language very well - it will force you to express yourself in French. Above all, don't lose heart or think that you can't do it. We have all learned at least one language successfully and there is no reason you can't replicate that experience with a second or a third even as an adult.

De-skilling: I want to talk about this one up front because this can come as a very unexpected and unpleasant surprise. Be prepared in some cases to be offered something that you do not feel is commensurate with your experience and education. This is very common and is a combination of misunderstandings about a person's experience, difficulty translating education credentials into a French context (what is the equivalent of a Bac +5 in your country?) and language difficulties. Some credentials simply don't count for much at all in a different context. I met a very nice Frenchwoman in Japan who was a French lawyer specializing in family law and could not find anything in Tokyo that was even close to what she had done in France. Not much demand for someone versed in her specialty and frankly it was impossible for her to practice law in Japan - she needed Japanese credentials for that. Be prepared for this and adjust accordingly. You might want to take a fairly low-paying job in the beginning until you find your feet. However, if you do plan to work long-term in your field in France don't get a job teaching your native language (English, Japanese, German) or working in an environment where French is not the main language. This is a terrible trap because you risk never learning the local language or culture adequately and your options will be very limited for a long time, if not forever. My best advice is to go the total immersion route. The pain you feel today will pay off later.

Discrimination: Whatever country you come from, you are a foreigner here. Even if you speak the language, chances are that you speak with an accent and cannot simply seamlessly blend in. Like all countries France has people who do not care for foreigners and probably won't hire them. Period. Even those that do may treat you differently. Co-workers are another issue. Chances are very good that you will hear things or be told things about your country of origin that will hurt and anger you. Some of it comes from ignorance and some is intentional malice. Try to assume the former and not the latter. In my own experience I have encountered people who do not like the U.S., do not like Americans and do not care to know them or work with them. It can be subtle or direct but in both cases there is not much you can do about this kind of discrimination. If it gets too bad and you have proof, there is usually a union rep you can talk to. In my experience the best strategy is to counter truly flagrant expressions of distaste with humour and to wait it out. Over time, people may not change their minds about Americans (or any other nationality) as a whole but they just might decide that you are OK. Usually, this is what happens with time. Also in my experience international or European companies can be better if you are foreign because they just have more experience dealing with people from different cultures which means that you are less exotic and therefore less of a target. I've been not only the only American in my work environment but also the only woman in upper management and I've taken it on the chin for both for years. Not always and not everywhere but it has happened. Sure, it happens in the home country too, but you are in a much more vulnerable position in your host country and you have less room to maneuver. Don't let it stop you. In my case I've consoled myself with the fact that, after listening in my youth to groups in the U.S. talk about their experiences with discrimination, I now understand in my bones exactly what they are talking about and why that has to change.

Work culture: If you do take my advice and work in a French environment, you will notice immediately that the culture is very different. Differences in how meetings are conducted, how you greet people in the morning (kiss or handshake?), when it's appropriate to send an email or when you should call and a million other things large and small that you will have to learn. And, in some cases, it's useful to know when you can break the rules and do things differently. But you have to learn the culture before you can know how to do this. So, in the beginning, be an amateur anthropologist: listen more than you talk, observe rather than trying to fully participate immediately, and be aware that everything you have learned up to now about how to behave at work is, in this context, questionable at best and may even be entirely inappropriate. Saying, "I'm sorry," for example, (a pretty standard Anglo-Saxon reflex) is not always a very good idea. Once you get to know people (or if you have French family and friends) ask if you are unsure about how to react to a situation. A native won't necessarily be able to tell you "why" but he or she can give you advice about "what to do." And, above all, don't complain or call the practice or the culture into question. Even the most sympathetic of your friends and family will probably react badly to your criticism. Yes, I know that this seems obvious but in a very stressful situation (changing cultures) almost every foreigner I have met (myself included) has lost his or her temper at least once with serious consequences. There is a very good LinkedIn group and website that I recommend if you want to know more about French work culture called Gestion des risques interculturels.

I'm going to stop there because this post is getting quite long. Feel free to ask questions or correct me if you have a different view in the comments section. The main point I'm trying to get across here is simply that working in France is a challenge but for every barrier there is a solution or a way to get around it. Be prepared, go in with an attitude of humility (ready to absorb and learn) and don't be afraid to ask for help. Trust me, this is doable.

European Blue Card - Update on France (February 2012)

2012-02-09T08:49:00.001+01:00

Time for an update on one of our (and your) favorite subjects - the implementation of the Blue Card.

Late January, the official French government site, Pour La Promotion de l'Immigration Professionelle, was updated with an entire page devoted to the EU Blue Card:

Ce dispositif vise à faciliter l’entrée, le séjour et le travail en France des ressortissants de pays tiers aux fins d’emploi hautement qualifié.
La France est le premier Etat membre de l’Union Européenne à transposer par la loi du 16 juin 2011 relative à l'immigration, à l'intégration et à la nationalité, la directive européenne 2009/50/CE du 25 mai 2009.

(This new option is meant to facilitate the entry, the residence and work in France of non-EU country nationals who are highly-qualified workers.
With the law of June 16, 2011 concerning immigration, integration and nationality, France is the first Member state of the EU to act into law the EU Directive 2009/50/CE of May 25, 2009.)

On this new page you will find links to the text of the law, a list of the papers you and the employer will need to provide and the procedure for the company to follow. Remember that this site is really destined for employers (not migrants) however I think it is useful for everyone concerned. The information here is quite clear and straightforward but there are a few surprising twists:

Nationals not concerned by this law: I knew that nationals of other EU states were not concerned but apparently people from Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Algeria are also exempt. In the last case, entry of Algerians is covered by a 1968 treaty between France and Algeria.

Definition of a THQ: There is a new acronym to learn, THQ, which means Travailleur hautement qualifié (Highly qualified worker). Basically someone with three years of higher education or five years of experience.

Salary requirements: Here they actually give a number to the rather vague "1.5 times the average salary of reference." In 2012 this translates to 51,444 Euros per year before taxes.

Family reunification: A Blue Card holder in France can bring his/her family and there is a simplified procedure for this. And they seem to be saying that family members of a Blue Card holder can work too. Check this one out carefully, folks, but this is what I read: "Carte de séjour temporaire mention "vie privée et familiale" qui autorise à travailler. Cette carte est délivrée pour la même durée de la validité que la carte bleue européenne. Renouvelable de plein droit durant la période de validité de la CBE du conjoint." (Temporary residency permit with the note "private and family life" which gives authorization to work. This card is delivered for the same duration as the Blue Card of the spouse. Renewable for the same period as the Blue Card of the spouse.)

There is much more: no medical visit required, for example, for a highly qualified worker. There is also another service concerned in the process which is the SMOE (Service de Main d'Œuvre Etrangère) and they have an explanation of how an application for a Blue Card is transferred from one service to another.

These are very generous terms. The salary they cite is well within what I would expect for someone with a good degree and/or experience. If spouses can work (and it appears that they can) that is another bonus. After 5 years of continuous residence Blue Card holders qualify for a long-term EU residency permit (10 years) and then possibly citizenship in an EU country. Of course, there is one issue to solve before any of this is possible and that is getting that contract. I am looking for work at the moment and what I will do is try to give you some idea of how to find a job in France in IT in a future post. I've got some good links and sites that might be useful to you and I'll be more than happy to share those with you.

French Blogosphere - 2012 Elections

2012-02-08T07:40:00.002+01:00

A few days ago the blog, French Politics, had a link to this interactive map, La blogosphère politique en 2012, showing the "galaxie" of the French blogosphere in this election year. The map is very well done. 1491 sites and blogs talking about French politics in 2012 and where they sit in the rather wide spectrum of political affiliation in France ranging from the Far Left to the Far Right. There are three separate maps:

The French Political Blogosphere: This appears to be all the sites. Their affiliation is color-coded. I was very amused to see the Left is pink. The Far Right is brown.

Blogosphere of Militants and Their Sympathizers: Blogs and sites connected to those with rather extreme views on the Left, Far Left and the Greens.

The Party Blogosphere: Over 1000 sites connected to the official parties and those who support them. I see that the folks from the Lutte Ouvrière are there.

A really amazing diversity of views, movements, parties. Have a look. There are links at the bottom of each map which will take you to an analysis of each map. Not a bad way to become more familiar with the French political landscape.

Avis de Contravention

2012-02-07T07:24:00.000+01:00

The French state is truly a marvel of efficiency. Yesterday we received an Avis de Contravention (notice of violation of the speed limit) in the mail which states that on January 31, 2012 at 9:21 in the evening my spouse was driving 58 km/hour (8 km/hour over the authorized speed limit) on the Quai du 4 Septembre in Paris. Yes, folks, my spouse's vehicle was flashed on the quay as he headed home from an alumni meeting in Paris.

Flashed? Yes. Isn't technology grand? Human intervention was not required in the detection of this infraction. Instead, a small device (probably a Mesta 210C automatic speed detector with camera) the technical characteristics of which you can read more about here, determined the speed of his vehicle, calculated that he was over the limit, and took a picture of the license plate. A mere 7 days later the speeding ticket arrived at the apartment on pretty green and white stationery complete with the logo of the French Republic.

The description of the infraction was succinct:

Excès de vitesse inferieur a 20 km/h par conducteur de véhicule à moteur - vitesse maximale autorisée inférieure ou égale a 50 km/h. Prévue par Art. R. 413-14 du Code de la route....
(Excess of speed of less than 20 km/h by the driver of a motor vehicle - speed limit authorized being less or equal to 50 km/h. Provided for by Article R. 413-14 of the Road Code...)

Which has two consequences:

Permis de conduire (driver's license): Since 1992 French driver's licenses have a certain number of points (the famous "permis de conduire à points"). These points can be deducted for bad driving behaviour or won back in the case of good behaviour. For speeding on the quay my spouse lost 1 point off his license (he has 6 points total).
Amende forfaitaire (fine): a whopping 135 Euros (90 Euros if paid within 15 days) for being 8 km/h over the speed limit. Ouch.

Now in the good old days when you received a speeding or parking ticket during an election year you just sat tight and waited because incoming French presidents would often proclaim an amnesty and erase all that unpleasantness - a gesture of good will to all bad (or unlucky) drivers and other offenders against public order. A fine way for a new president to help the country celebrate his election to high office and to thank the voters for their collective wisdom in conferring this honor upon him.

So when faced with a speeding ticket in 2012, the question is: pay or don't pay? Tough question because Sarkozy, in principle, is against such practices. On the other hand, Sarko is not polling well these days and it is entirely possible that Hollande will win and we will be ushering in a new president this year.

My spouse and I are not ready to call this election just yet and we paid up last night via internet. But like many people here, we will be watching the polls closely. To those of you who might be visiting France this year, consider yourself warned. It might be prudent to take the public transportation during your stay. French drivers are, in normal times, rather aggressive. With the possibility of an amnesty, some of them just might tempt fate (theirs and yours) by putting the "pedal to the metal" in that ancient Renault 5.

Paris Manga and Sci-fi Show

2012-02-05T20:23:00.001+01:00

In spite of the inclement weather I had promised the younger Frenchling that I would take her to the 13th Paris Manga and Sci-fi Show at the Porte de Versailles convention center. After a warm bath and a cup of coffee we marched out of the apartment this morning and took the 171 bus to Sèvres and then the T2 tramway to Porte de Versailles. I'd forgotten how much I like the tram. It's bright, airy, clean and has a smooth, quiet ride - a barely perceptible hum as it skims along the tracks. The view was particularly good today with all the snow covering the houses streets and sidewalks.

We arrived a little after 11 AM, bought our tickets, and promptly dived into the center of the crowd where it was warmest. Now I know nothing about manga or anime so I decided to let the younger Frenchling be my guide. I really had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be a strange but enjoyable experience - a cross between a Star Trek Convention and the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The first event that we watched was karaoke. The organizers took videos and songs from various animes and invited volunteers up on stage to sing along. Most of the crowd already knew all the words and to my utter amazement so did the younger Frenchling. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of over 50 young French adolescents enthusiastically belting out the theme song from Naruto Shippuden, Bluebird, in Japanese.

The costumes were amazing. My daughter taught me a new word, "cosplay" which comes from two English words: "costume" and "playing". The kids dress as their favorite characters and some of the costumes were wild. After awhile I was able to recognize certain styles and characters like "Black Butler" which seems to be wildly popular. Because it was also a Sci-fi convention there were the usual Star Wars characters and a few from Resident Evil. There were costumed people in the crowd carrying signs that said, "Free Hugs" and I was told that, yes indeed, one could stop them, take a picture and get a hug and a kiss. How extraordinary.

And of course no convention would be complete without the vendors and there were some great things to be had amongst the fake swords, costumes and stuffed animals.

I found this shop, AOI Clothing, which had a great selection of really beautiful hand-made kimonos and yukatas. Be warned, this shop is very dangerous. Because there were so many beautiful things, in a few short minutes I was perilously close to heating my Blue Card (debit card) to its melting point. I was only able to restrain myself by strictly limiting my purchases and making sure they had my name and address for their mailing list.

Nor could we resist when we stumbled on one stand selling some of our favorite Japanese candies and pastries.

Home now, sated, exhausted and happily munching on Red Bean and Mango Mochis in front of a roaring fire.

Snowing in Versailles

2012-02-05T08:20:00.001+01:00

And my wish was granted.

I woke up this morning and saw that my patio was covered with a light dusting of the white stuff. Here is what it looked like at 6 AM this morning:

And a few hours later (around 8 AM):

Bois pour cheminée

2012-02-04T11:55:00.001+01:00

France is experiencing "un pic de froid" (a cold snap) this week. It was -9 degrees Celsius (about 15 degrees Fahrenheit) here in Versailles last Thursday and the temperatures will stay low until well into next week. I can see the results in my garden - my plants usually overwinter quite well but, as you can see, they were not in great shape this morning. Too late to bring them in, I think.

France is not the only country shivering right now. Les Chroniques Berliniquaises is reporting that Berliners are also complaining about the cold. At least they have snow as compensation. I hope we will be as lucky.

We have a perfectly nice apartment here in Versailles but there are two reasons it's a lot less comfortable in winter than in summer. The first is that there is no insulation in the walls and the windows and doors are original to the building which was constructed in the 1970's (before conserving energy was a priority). We have placed bolsters around the windows in the kitchen and the living room and we are closing the shutters every night. The second is the heating system which is central and controlled by the building management. We have some control over it in the apartment - we can adjust the radiators, for example - but we have no control over the fact that the heat is cut off every night at about 11:00 PM and re-started in the morning around 5 AM. The boiler has been unreliable the past few weeks so some mornings we have no heat at all until around 9 or 10 AM.

Happily we have a little fireplace. This morning we went off to the lumberyard to pick up enough wood for the weekend and next week. We've been buying wood from the owner for several years now so he knows us and always gives us a hearty handshake when we step out of the car and walk over to the woodlot. Because our car is old we are limited in the amount of wood we can buy at any one time - the undercarriage drags on the entrance to the parking if we have too heavy a load.

A quarter stere is about all we can manage at one time. The owner helps us load up the car before turning his attention to a really beautiful 60ish year-old Frenchwoman who is "buying some wood for friends in Paris."

Back at the apartment, we unload the wood and I make us all a cup of hot coffee while we warm our hands over the warm (hurrah!) radiators. I will make a fire after lunch and we'll probably watch movies and read books all afternoon. If we are lucky the younger Frenchling will be inspired to make us a cake for the "goûter" (snack).

Now we are not so deluded as to think that we can stave off the chill and heat our apartment with our little fire in our little fireplace. I'll be the first to admit that it's purely psychological: the hot coffee, the fire crackling away, a good book, the family gathered in the living room and something nice to eat, just feels warm and cosy.

I hope it snows.

Tidying Up the Flophouse

2012-02-04T08:54:00.003+01:00

A few months ago my mother suggested that my housekeeping was not all that it could be. My blog was messy and she suggested that I start grouping topics by theme so that things were easier to find. Now I may be a lady of a certain age but I always always listen to my mother. So I started adding links to the right-hand sidebar which worked fine for awhile.

Today there are over 300 posts at the Flophouse and that sidebar was starting to fill up. So last week I started sorting and organizing in between reading and answering ads.

Five Pages for the most popular Flophouse themes: Instead of having the links on the sidebar, I created separate pages for each theme so, if you are interested, for example, in reading about How to Raise Frenchlings, you can just go to the page and read them in the order they were written. Here are the other four themes with links to posts I think are particularly pertinent:

European Blue Card - All the posts going back to last year when I first took up this topic. There is specific country information posted as it came in but also links to resources that might be useful like the EU Directive creating the Blue Card, Recognition of Academic Credentials, the excellent CEDEFOP site and their Studies of the EU Job Market, and, of course, the very new (and very well done) EU Immigration Portal.

The Diaspora Tax War of 2012 - Posts about the war that the U.S. government has decided to wage against its citizens and Green Card holders abroad. The American Diaspora is fighting back and I think 2012 may be THE year that the diaspora unites and roars. To understand what all the fuss is about I suggest the following posts: Hard Times for the American Diaspora, The 2012 Diaspora Tax Wars, The Consequences of Being a U.S. Person, and Why You Should Care about FATCA.

Citizenship - Posts about dual (plural) nationality, methods for acquiring and losing citizenship and the evolution of my thinking about becoming a citizen of my host country, France. From Always a Resident. Never a Citizen to The Narcissism of Difference.

Reflections on Crossing Cultures - My thoughts about being an French immigrant/American emigrant who has lived nearly half her life outside of her home country: Immigrant Rage, Alien, Love Where You're From but Bloom Where You're Planted, The People Paradox of Globalization, Fairy Tales.

I will stop there and leave the book reviews, reading lists and Flophouse favorite people and places for another day (spring cleaning, perhaps?)

And while I have my Mac in hand (actually lap) this morning I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time out of your busy days to come and read the Flophouse. I consider it an enormous honor to have readers and I deeply appreciate your visits, your emails and your comments.

If you have suggestions for how to make the Flophouse better, or you have topics to propose, just send me an email (v_ferauge@yahoo.com).

Bon weekend!

Atmosphère, atmosphère....

2012-02-02T10:05:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I wrote about discovering the Canal Saint Martin near La Republique. A blogger I greatly admire, a French citizen from Martinique living in Berlin who writes the fabulous blog Les Chroniques Berliniquaises, left this comment:

Here's something for you; I'm quite sure that you missed out on it because you're a foreigner...
Why do you think what you call "the Mayor's website" (I didn't follow the link, just read the text you copied) used quotes around the word atmosphère? You wouldn't need them normally for such a word in this context, there's nothing special about the way it is employed, except... that most French people with some knowledge of their classics of the French Cinéma know that next to the Canal St-Martin, there is this small hotel called Hôtel du Nord, which gave its name to a 1938 film featuring French cinema legend Arletty, and thus associated with one of the best-known French cinema lines ever (for French people that is), which goes simply as such:

« Atmosphère, atmosphère, est-ce que j’ai une gueule d’atmosphère ? ».

He is absolutely right - I completely missed the allusion when I read the description here and did not include the quotes around the word "atmosphere" in my translation. Just for fun, here is a clip from the film which contains the famous line that he refers to:

Just wonderful. Thank you again, Le Chroniqueur Berliniquais, for pointing it out. :-)

A Day in the Life of an American Emigrant bis

2012-02-02T08:55:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning, looked at my stats over my morning coffee and just about hit the floor. Apparently a post I wrote a few days ago A Day in the Life of an American Emigrant was shared on a forum called Reddit. Generated quite a lively discussion and I read the comments with a great deal of interest. I've simply never had that much feedback on anything I've ever written and I did and do appreciate all those who came and read whether their impression was positive or negative.

Some folks thought it was "arrogant" and, if it did come off that way, than I apologize. I assure you that it wasn't intentional and I will endeavor to do better in the future. What I tried to do was to be as factual as I could be about what a typical day is like here for me. I know people who have it better and I know quite a few people right now who have it much worse wherever they are. This is it, folks, and it's not better than life elsewhere, it's just different with its own joys and challenges.

There was one comment however that I'd like to address because it is factually incorrect and it was about taxes. I was pretty much OK for many years since I never really earned much money and I was always under the income exclusion. In 2010/2011, exceptionally, I came very close to that cap because I had finally "arrived," you might say, in my profession and because of the exchange rates. That year we had also decided to sell two small one-bedroom apartments we had in a small city in the south that we had purchased as an investment. We sold them because, quite frankly, one of the gentleman who was renting had a very nasty habit of stopping his rent in winter. :-) And that made it very tough to pay the loan every month. So we sold and to my horror my tax situation got very complicated very fast and I had to seek professional help. I ended up paying American taxes that year and will pay again this year. It seemed odd to be paying US taxes on a property that was purchased via a loan from a French bank and with money that was earned entirely in France but that is how it goes. (Just for info I have no assets or money in the US - everything I have or earn is in France). I'll be honest and say that it hurt to pay but pay I did. And now I have to go through the whole business again this year. Hence, my desire to keep things simple from now on - the aggravation and cost of hiring professional help and having to write a (for me) substantial check kinda dimmed my ambitions. ;-)

Ted Talk: Your Different is My Normal

2012-02-01T08:34:00.000+01:00

This is wonderful. In a few short minutes Derek Silvers shows that what you think is "normal" depends very much on your cultural perspective. He uses the difference between the address system used in Japan and that used in the U.S. or France to show that we can all be looking at the same thing but we interpret it very very differently depending on our cultural programming. Many thanks to Jaime LeBlanc for sharing this on Twitter:

Diasporas: India and her PIOs

2012-01-31T09:50:00.001+01:00

In 1957, Prime Minister Nehru of India said:

We have left it up to the Indians abroad whether they continue to remain Indian nationals or to adopt the nationality of whatever country they live in. It is entirely for them to decide. If they remain Indian nationals, then all they can claim abroad is favourable alien treatment. If they adopt the nationality of the country they live in, they should associate themselves as closely as possible with the interest of the people of the country they have adopted...

A very clear statement indeed. Having helped India achieve independence 10 years prior to this, the Indian diaspora (the "Indians abroad", a group of which Ghandi himself was a member at one time) was then informed that their nation was not overly interested in them and was not at all prepared to give them any recognition whatsoever, much less any help. At that time there were around 4 million PIOs, "People of Indian Origin", scattered all over the globe but living most in former British colonies.

Fast forward to 2003 and the very first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, the "Day of the Indians Abroad" and the recognition by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani of the Vishwa Bharati (Global India), the "embodiment of India in the world". Interesting enough many of the diasporans who attended this first ever celebration of the achievement of Indians abroad were not Indian nationals. The tent, so to speak, had been broadened to include the PIO's, people who had roots in India but who were also citizens of other states. The Indian government was proclaiming that it not only had an interest in these people but it claimed them for India regardless of their other affiliations.

What happened in those 50 years to change the Indian government's attitude toward "Overseas Indians" is the subject of Latha Varadarajan's book, The Domestic Abroad. It's a fascinating tale and, as the member of another national diaspora struggling to achieve recognition, I read it with great attention. The institutionalization of relations between the homeland and its diaspora is not obvious and depends greatly on history and an ever-changing political and economic context.

Before independence the Indian diaspora was useful in the sense that it was another resource to be used to win Indian sovereignty but its existence became rather troublesome very quickly once this was achieved. At that time sovereignty was the primary concern and that meant control over a specific territory with distinct boundaries in which the state represents a nation. Indian control over Indian territory was still quite new and perhaps a bit uncertain. The diaspora did not fit well into this discourse. Not only were these people not directly under the control of the Indian government, or physically present to build the new Indian nation-state, they were also the object of rather vicious discrimination in some of their host countries. Was India obliged to intervene on their behalf? A very hard question for a new state. Hence, Nehru's rather cold but clear statement about how exactly the Indian government viewed its citizens abroad.

According to Varadarajan, change came slowly. In part it was Indian emigration that changed the picture. in the 1970's and 80's the flow of highly-skilled people out of India to places like the U.K. and the U.S. became a flood. Another kind of migration, that of unskilled labor, was moving to the Middle East. The first group was composed of highly-skilled professionals and the government worried about the "brain drain." The second group was actually encouraged to leave in the hope that they would find employment in the Middle East and send back remittances to India thus solving two problems at once: unemployment in the homeland and increased foreign capital coming in which was desperately needed.

Another factor that was important were the different economic crisis that the Indian government faced over the years (currency devaluations, foreign exchange crisis and so on). There was a gradual opening of the economy in response to IMF and World Bank pressure. It was in this context that the Indian government started looking toward its diaspora for relief. In 1982 the government announced a "Non-resident Indian portfolio investment scheme" which was very controversial. Not all Indians in the homeland were willing to accept PIOs as being "not so foreign" and thus legitimate investors in Indian enterprises. On the other hand, many of these Indian abroad had made substantial fortunes in their host countries and it seemed reasonable, and to everyone's benefit, to tap into this. Varadarajan claims that it was at this time that attitudes really began to change, "The interchangeable usage of categories like 'Nonresident Indian' and 'Person of Indian Origin' is important because it enabled the blurring of distinctions based on rules of citizenship....making possible the constitution of the India diaspora as a unified social group, with a deep and abiding connection to the Indian nation-state." From "foreign" to "not so foreign' to "one of us" requires a series of mental leaps on the part of the government and the Indian people. Leaps that would be inconceivable, in my opinion, to Americans in the homeland today when they look at their diaspora which is purely "temporary" of course - a neat bit of fiction that is used to justify the very "hands-off' position of the US government today.

The end of the 20th and the start of the 21st centuries ushered in some very concrete steps to institutionalize this relationship between the Indian homeland and the 20 million strong diaspora: dual citizenship, the "Day of the Indian Abroad," a Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, and other initiatives.

But what of the PIO's themselves in all this? If I have one criticism of Varadarajan's book, it would be this: it treats the Indians abroad as passive actors with all the action being on the side of the Indian government. What was, in fact, the reaction of the Indian diaspora in 1957 to Nehru's words? How did Indians abroad react to government policies in the years between independence and India's rise in the early part of the 21st century? Did they ever organize? Did they form diaspora organizations to lobby the homeland? How did they react to the change in mentality - going from being perceived as a source of trouble to a source of investment? And most important, is the Indian government's portrayal of them today as "a group that had a deep and abiding connection to the motherland" an accurate assessment of their feelings? Hard to know but if anyone has any sources, I would be very interested.

I, of course, read Varadarajan's story of the Indian diaspora through the prism of my own experience as a member of another country's diaspora (or proto-diaspora if Sheffer is to be believed). Clearly the United States is in a great deal of trouble today with very serious social and economic problems. Having portrayed the American diaspora as a source of vast untapped wealth held by disloyal people, the US government is attempting to appropriate some of their property and income earned in their host countries in order to make a dent in the huge budget deficit and support investment in jobs and infrastructure in the home country. I have referred to this as the "Diaspora Tax War of 2012" and I think that does accurately describe the situation. The actions of the American government are openly belligerent and hostile with no attempt whatsoever to negotiate or to appeal to the loyalties of the 6 million Americans living outside of U.S. territory. It is nothing less than a war against its own people and will not, in my opinion, end well for anyone.

I would invite them to consider the actions of other governments - India is hardly alone in softening its stance toward its people abroad. Mexico, France, China and many other countries have come to terms with their diasporas and expanded their definition of "us" to include those who choose to reside elsewhere. As a result their nations have expanded, they have more power and influence in the world, they have citizens who are and remain loyal to their countries of origin and, I would contend, they have strengthened their nation-states, not weakened them. In a globalized world with ever increasing international migration, this is not only prudent and intelligent policy, it is a winning strategy for the homeland and its diaspora alike.

Is it truly beyond the imagination of the American nation-state to envision a world where the boundaries of the United States of America expand to include "People of American Origin" as citizen-ambassadors, unofficial diplomats, and economic actors all working on behalf of the homeland? A source of rich diversity, a projection of "soft" American power far beyond its present boundaries, and a well of willing investment in the home country to create jobs and pull the nation up and out of its current woes?

I live in hope.

A Day in the Life of an American Emigrant

2012-01-30T16:23:00.000+01:00

Some of the articles and comments I've been reading lately about overseas Americans leave me shaking my head in disbelief. Americans in the homeland seem to think that I spend my days plotting to escape taxes as I sip my wine in a plush Parisian bistro. I thought it might be instructive to open the "volets" (shutters) and give you a glimpse of how one American emigrant in France spends her day.

The day begins between 6 and 7 in the morning. My husband kisses me as he heads out the door to work. Like many people in the Ile de France, he works in Paris and has quite the commute in the morning. He drives our nearly 20-year old car which still runs well because he very careful about maintenance. We are hoping to coax a few more years of life out of it before we have to replace it. The younger Frenchling appears at about the same time my husband leaves and we exchange a few words in English before she heads out the door to school. Her departure signals the end of the morning in English and the start of the day in French.

Like a lot of people in these times of crisis, I am unemployed, so the first order of the day (after coffee) is consulting my mail and the job boards advertising IT positions. Out of all the alerts and job boards I consult, 99% of them are in French with only a few from LinkedIn in English. This morning I set them aside in a folder to be examined more closely later because I have a job interview at 11:00 in Paris and I need to leave early enough to make the train.

I'm out the door a little after 9 AM. Today I am taking the train from Versailles-Chantiers, a station in the center of the city which is about a twenty minute walk from my house. This train station was considered quite modern in the 1930's, today one is quite conscious that it has seen better days. The nicer station in that part of town is Versailles Rive-Gauche which brings tourists to the castle from Paris. Versailles-Chantiers is less safe and is where I had my wallet pickpocketed last summer so I am extra careful to keep my belongings close to me lest I have another unfortunate incident (something I can ill afford right now).

The train itself, however, is clean and dry and warm. As always I have brought along a couple of books and I happily install myself in a good seat and read Patrick Weil's La République et sa diversité, Immigration, Intégration, Discriminations. For a round-trip ticket to Paris and back I pay 6.50 Euros (about 8 American dollars) and in about 20 minutes I am at La Defense, the commercial district on the west side of Paris. From there I ascend from the bowels of the train platform into the main station and down again into the metro, line number 1. Very quickly I arrive at in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a very posh district indeed. As I walk toward the recruitment company's offices I scan the real-estate agencies ads displayed in the windows and note a fairly modest two-bedroom apartment selling for 580,000 Euros (about 760,000 American dollars) which serves to remind me why I am not living in Paris. Even the rents are high in the city and because we are down to one income right now we would probably not qualify for something in Paris even half the size of what we have now in Versailles.

By design I am a few minutes early for my appointment. One never knows with the trains and I like to be there ahead of time which is infinitely preferable to being late (even in France). I walk into a bistro next to the office, order a coffee, drink it slowly (it's a pretty good expresso) and still have just enough time to use the bathroom and comb out my hair before I present myself at the reception. They are very pleasant - I am ushered into a conference room, served a cup of coffee and I take the opportunity to read the newspaper while I wait. It is today's edition of Le Figaro (a very respectable Right-leaning French paper). The headline is about Sarkozy's "Shock Reforms." I make my way through the paper and on page 9 in the international section (after the news from the UK, China, India, Syria, and Russia) is a lone article about the U.S. - the influence of Hispanic voters in the Florida primaries. Interesting.

My interview goes quite well but it is tiring. One and a half hours of giving my pitch and having the very nice gentleman explain the realities of the market and my place in it in a very pleasant but firm manner. One subject that comes up is my "prétentions salariales" (salary expectations). I have lowered my price substantially compared to what I could reasonably assume to make given my level of experience and he wants to know why. I have already decided to be very transparent about this and so I explain the American system of taxation on worldwide income. Given the income exclusion of 92,500 USD (about 70,000 USD) it doesn't make any sense for me to ask for a package (base salary, bonuses and profit-sharing) that exceeds that. Even if I am able to defray some of the extra income through tax credits, this will require expensive professional help and I'm not sure to come out ahead. He is floored and I'm sure he'll check the information since he could not envision a country that would encourage its expatriates to earn less while abroad. The interview ends on a good note - I enjoyed the contact and perhaps they will have something for me soon.

Back to the metro and another train and the walk back to the house to have lunch and a cup of coffee before tackling those job advertisements. I mentioned above that the departure of my daughter was the beginning of my day in French. Allow me to expand on that. From the moment she left for school and I left the house every interaction I had, every sign I read, every instruction I followed, the purchase of the coffee from the barman in the bistro, the book I chose to read, the welcome by the receptionist and the interview itself were all in French. I heard not one word of English during the entire morning and I used only one English phrase during my interview and it was "thesis advisor" because I had a blank moment where I could not for the life of me think of the French word. Oh, and there was one advertisement in the metro for an English language school called the Wall Street Institute which touted its strengths in teaching people "English" (and not "anglais").

Just as important, I think was the complete absence of any news, headlines, commentary or even conversations on street, in the metro or the train about the United States. For the purpose of writing this post I paid attention today, and all I could find was the article in Le Figaro. So, my fellow Americans, any French person reading that paper today will take away one image of the U.S. - that of Hispanic voters in Florida highly annoyed by the Republicans. This is not by design or out of disregard for Americans. It's just that people in other countries have their own concerns and don't really spend a lot of time worrying about what is going on "over there." An American emigrant who wants news from "home" has to make an effort - something that was made infinitely more difficult for me (a longtime reader of the New York Times) when their on-line edition started restricting readers to a limited number of free articles per month. I tried at first to be careful and use my views wisely but in the past few months I've given up and now I just get my news from Le Monde on-line (or sometimes Slate) which has no such restrictions.

I'm home now and after having my lunch (and my coffee) I will head upstairs and start making calls and answering ads. 99% of both will be in the "langue de Molière" and I must say that all those customized "lettres de motivation" are a perfect way to improve my written French. If the rest of the day proceeds as planned I will work until my younger Frenchling arrives home from school (about 6 PM) and at that moment the English comes to life once again in my home.

However (and this may be the most important thing I'd like you to understand) at no point in the day does anything resembling an American life appear - only a few American customs that we have decided to keep here because we like them, just like we keep some of what we gathered in Japan that pleased us. That we speak some English at home is much less important that it seems. Over the years I've become very conscious of the disconnect between language and culture. The two people I speak English with, my younger Frenchling and my husband, do not share my culture. My husband has spent nearly all his life in France and my French/American daughter has no memory of living in the U.S. I know their culture but they do not know mine. In our house when we talk about the President, it is necessary to be very precise about which one since the assumption will be that I am referring to Sarkozy.

Once upon a time all this bothered me great deal. It felt like parts of me were slipping away year after year into some strange place where I was destined to be forever isolated - an "exotic beast" who had to be interpreted daily by her own offspring. Those times have come and gone, and today I have no regrets. Though, frankly, I am not sure I'd ever have the courage to go through it again.

Back to the job search.

Kendo in Versailles

2012-01-29T16:14:00.000+01:00

From http://www.versaillesbudo.fr/

Late this morning the younger Frenchling and I walked up to the Montbauron Gymnasium here in Versailles to watch the fellow members of her Kendo club compete in the Ile de France Kendo Championship.

We were a little startled when the younger Frenchling first informed us that she was going to start lessons at the local club. But after seeing the competition, I have gone from being merely supportive to outright enthusiastic.

Kendo is a modern incarnation of traditional Japanese sword-fighting - the name literally means "way of the sword." But instead of swords, practitioners use a long pole made of bamboo strips tied together called a shinai. The armor I saw was made of modern materiel but was still shaped in a way that recalls the traditional oyoroi armor of the Japanese samurais.

It was fascinating to watch. Bracketing each match were formal gestures (bowing to your opponent and symbolically "putting away one's sword") but the matches themselves were lightning fast and quite ferocious at times. I winced every time someone got in a good blow to the head or the ribs (the younger Frenchling confirms that, yes, it does actually hurt a lot in spite of the armor). To give you some idea of what it was like, here is a brief clip from Youtube (14th World Kendo Competition) that I think best captures the flavor of what I saw today:

As for the participants at the Versailles competition, I had heard that there was a large community of Japanese or Japanese-French in Versailles and, yes, they were well represented. I also noticed that almost all the teams had women members. They were not anywhere near as large as the men but they were both fast and determined. I saw one short statured woman of Japanese origin whip the living daylights out of her male opponent through sheer speed and skill. But what impressed me the most was the attitude of both the competitors and the crowd. Sure, the teams were there to win but they seem to approach each match with humility and a deep appreciation for other people's skill - a deft move by a kendoka was applauded by everyone, not just his or her teammates.

My daughter's club competed and lost their last round in the early afternoon. It was very close - the two teams were tied and an additional match was held to break the tie. First point went to the opposing team and so the other team won the round. We did have time before we left however to buy the younger Frenchling her very own shinai (women's size 38).

The Path to French Citizenship: Certificate of French Nationality

2012-01-28T09:10:00.002+01:00

I went down to the Japanese Embassy near Etoile last week to pick up my Japanese police report. As always the Japanese consular officials were very efficient - I was in and out in under 15 minutes. I was dying to know what it looked like (and what is in it) but I will never know because it comes sealed in a brown envelope and I was informed (quite sternly) by the Japanese Consulate that only the French Prefecture has the right to break the seal and see the contents.

Another document we need is an official Certificate of French Nationality (Certificat de nationalité française) for my French husband and we soon discovered that Anne Sinclair was right - it is not as easy as it looks to actually prove that one is French. What exactly is the purpose of this document?

Le certificat de nationalité française (CNF) est un document officiel, qui sert à prouver la nationalité française.
Il indique comment et pourquoi le demandeur a la qualité de français, ainsi que les documents qui ont permis de l'établir.
Il peut notamment être demandé lors d'une première demande de titre d'identité sécurisé (carte d'identité ou passeport), ou pour une candidature à un emploi dans la fonction publique.
(The Certificate of French nationality is an official document that serves to prove French nationality.It indicates how and why a person is French, as well as the supporting documents to support the claim.It can be required when a person first requests a secure identity document (identity card or passport), or when a person applies for a job in public service.)

Sounds like every French person has an interest in having one (just in case, mind you). So how does one go about getting this precious document? Well, it depends on where the French person making the request is located (France, Paris or abroad) and whether or not he/she was born on French territory or abroad. My husband's case is a bit tricky because he was born in Medea, Algeria in 1962 when Algeria was a French dominion. In that case, we were told, my husband, once he has all the documentation, needs to apply at the Versailles Tribunal d'instance (which is happily not too far from our apartment).

Now that we know where to apply, we turned to the issue of what documentation will be required. Turns out that this is quite tricky and depends on the category of the person making the request. There are no fewer than five cases and they are worth examining because they are a snapshot of French nationality law as it is applied today:

Personne née en France, d'un parent né également en France (a person born in France of a parent also born in France): This is the infamous double jus soli rule that says that anyone born in France with at least one parent born in France is French even if the parents and grand-parents were foreigners.

Personne française par filiation (French by filiation) This is transmission of nationality by blood, also known as jus sanguinis. Anyone with a parent who is French is French by right of blood (droit de sang). This must be proved by producing documentation about one's parents and also one's grand-parents.

Personne devenue française par acquisition volontaire (décret ou déclaration de nationalité) (Person who voluntarily acquired French nationality by decree or declaration) These are the naturalized citizens who became French by either applying for it or by decree (it can be simply conferred on a person in some cases).

Personne devenue française pendant sa minorité, en raison de l'acquisition de la nationalité française par l'un de ses parents (Person who became French as a minor child because one of his/her parents acquired French nationality) So this means any child with foreign parents who became French by naturalization during that child's minority received French citizenship as a result.

Personne devenue française par acquisition de plein droit à sa majorité, par naissance et résidence en France pendant 5 ans (Person who acquired French citizenship at his/her majority, by birth and residence in France for at least five years). This is a combination of jus soli and what you could call residency-based citizenship. The two requirements are that the child be born in France and have resided in France for at least 5 years during his/her minority. From this it seems that having lived 13 years outside of France during one's minority still gives a child born in France the right to French citizenship.

My husband falls under the category of "Personne française par filiation" which means that he is now calling the authorities in both the Limousin and Normandy (his parent's regions of origin) in order to get official copies of their birth certificates and those of their parents (his grand-parents). Frankly, he finds this all a bit annoying - his reaction seems to have mirrored that of Anne Sinclair. He was also not amused when I suggested that he might find some surprises in his family tree - a Spaniard or an Italian, perhaps?

The delicious irony of all this, of course, is that the people who have the least amount of paperwork to provide for a CNF are the naturalized citizens (i.e. the foreigners) whereas the French who have been French for generations by blood and soil have to provide a pile of official papers proving Frenchness going back at least two generations. Was this really what the Right had in mind? Probably not. So I guess we can just consider this another unintended consequence of laws designed to harass the "foreign" which result in enormous inconvenience for the "native-born."

Why You Should Care About FATCA

2012-01-26T09:52:00.001+01:00

There is a petition up on Signon.org that is calling for the repeal of FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), the U.S. law which has terrible ramifications both for the U.S. and all other countries. It would require foreign banks to report the account information of all U.S. persons (U.S. citizens and Green Card holders) to the American IRS and imposes draconian fines on foreign entities for non-compliance.

Some of the Americans in the homeland I've talked to about this argue that this is a necessary evil and how else is the U.S. to find "tax evaders?" Well, that does kind of assume that Americans abroad are criminals and must prove that their checking, savings, retirement and children's college funds have not been established for nefarious purposes. One would think that the burden would be on the U.S. government to prove that something criminal has indeed taken place and it is very hard to see what an American expatriate is doing wrong when he or she sets up a savings account for a minor child at a local bank.

Some of the Europeans I've talked to have said simply that this is an American problem and since they are not Americans it does not concern them.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, my friends, but this legislation concerns everyone in all countries. Jean-Jacques Rommes, head of the Luxembourg Banking Association, explains why in this presentation given to Democrats Abroad not too long ago. Here are the different victims of this law and the impact it will have on them:

European (and all other) countries: It is an affront to national sovereignty because it by-passes local governments. It is nothing less than the application of American law to people living in other countries with all the inconvenience for local citizens and potential conflicts with local law. How would Americans feel if Canada, Mexico or France demanded that U.S. banks report directly to their tax agencies over the head and without the consent of the U.S. government?

Europeans: Europeans (and people in all other countries) will have to prove to their banks that they are not American citizens or Green Card holders. Imagine that. A French person, for example, will have to prove to their local bank that they have no connection to the U.S. (not born in the U.S., no U.S. born parent and no lengthy periods of residence in the U.S.) In addition to this, all banks that comply with FATCA must update their IT systems and the costs will be very high indeed. Who do you think is going to pay for this? Certainly not the U.S. government or U.S. citizens in the homeland. No, the cost will be borne by all account holders (my French neighbor, for example, or my former colleagues) at that bank whether it is the BNP, the Caisse d'Epargne or any other non-US bank.

Americans Abroad: U.S. persons will be discriminated against. Their accounts will be closed by banks that do not wish to take on the administrative burden of having U.S. clients. Americans abroad will become "toxic liabilities" to be shed as quickly as possible. American businessmen and women in overseas companies will see their authority over company funds stripped from them. Any American wanting to start a business venture with a non-US company will be gently but firmly told to take his expertise and his money somewhere else.

Americans in the U.S.: The impact on the American economy cannot be overstated. There will be a massive disinvestment of foreign capital and assets out of the United States. FATCA gives foreign companies and investors a very good reason to avoid the U.S. entirely. This means fewer jobs for Americans. This means fewer opportunities for American business. The result of FATCA will be Americans and American companies shut out of the globalization game (which may actually be very much to the benefit of America's competition, like China or the EU, in the global marketplace).

The Repeal Fatca petition was started by Rami S. who was kind enough to share her motivations with me for getting involved in fighting FATCA:

I am an American citizen by birth, and have had the broadening experience of living most of my life outside of the US. I have many beloved family members still in the US, and a far-flung and international clan, ever more international with each marriage it seems! My roots are deep enough to be a "daughter of the American Revolution", and, with each generation, there has been in and out migration. To me, this is a fact of modern life -- and life long before the modern era!
I value my American citizenship, I identify as an American. I passionately love the geography of my birthplace... I am as active politically as I can be, from abroad, because I think America needs and benefits from the influence of its citizens who contribute an international, global perspective as a check to isolationism and insularity. We are all connected, in every way...
FATCA and FBAR are policies that radically trespass the normal bounds of international tax law and victimize expats, who, appreciated or not, are valuable citizens...

I could not have said it better myself. I urge each and every one of you, U.S. person or not, to sign this petition and send a clear message to the U.S. Congress and President Obama. The petition is here.

Once you've done that head over to the American Citizens Abroad site and the Isaac Brock Society to see how you can get further involved.

If you are an EU citizen the following MEP's and activists are challenging FATCA and trying to get a debate started in the European Parliament. Send them an email: Jan Philipp Albrecht (Germany), Rui Tavares (Portugal), Raül Romeva i Rueda (Spain), Judith Sargentini (Netherlands), Cornelia Ernst (Germany), Miguel Portas (Portugal), Marisa Matias(Portugal), Sophia in ‘t Veld (Netherlands), Sylvie Goulard (France), Sonia Alfano (Italy), Alexander Alvaro, Baroness Sarah Ludford (United Kingdom), Theodoros Skylakakis (Greece), Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (Spain), Philippe De Backer (Belgium), Jens Rohde (Denmark), Stanimir Ilchev (Bulgaria), Giommaria Uggias (Italy).

And, if you are an American citizen, register to vote!

Les Ecluses du Temple

2012-01-25T00:30:00.000+01:00

Another trip to one of my favorite neighborhoods in Paris yielded an unexpected delight. I was walking back to the métro station with friend and, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something that reminded me of my old neighborhood in Tokyo. We had some time so we took a detour and, lo and behold, there it was - a canal cached behind a park.

This is the Canal Saint Martin which was constructed between 1805 and 1825 and connects the Seine with the Bassin de la Villette. Much of the canal is completely covered but it very discreetly comes out into the open air close to the Place de La République. There are no fewer than 9 écluses (locks) on this 4.5 kilometer canal and the ones I saw (called the Ecluses du Temple) were the loveliest sight I'd seen in Paris in years. You can read more about it at the Mayor's website here which proposes a stroll along the canal to discover:

Son " atmosphère " particulière, ses mystérieuses voûtes souterraines, la poésie dégagée par cette voie d'eau bordée de marronniers et de platanes plus que centenaires, ponctuée de passerelles romantiques... (It's particular atmosphere, it's mysterious subterranean vaults, the poetry inspired by this waterway lined with chestnuts and platanes over a hundred years old, marked by romantics passageways...)

Here are a few pictures that I managed to take with my camarade's camera (naturally I had left mine at home). Un grand merci à Sanae pour cette matinée à la fois productive et pleine de découverte....

Globalization, Cloud Services and the U.S. Patriot Act

2012-01-24T11:55:00.001+01:00

As a lot of you may already know, I work in IT here in Europe. I was recently given a heads-up on an issue that I had completely missed in the media: how U.S. surveillance and anti-terrorist laws are impacting the ability of U.S. companies to compete in a global market.

It starts with something called the Patriot Act which was signed into law by U.S. President George Bush and extended by President Obama in 2011. This act gives the U.S. government broad powers to legally gather information on individuals and entities suspected of acting in ways that are dangerous to U.S. interests.

This Act has been defended as an unfortunate necessity in these troubled times and vilified as an intolerable attack on Americans' consitutional rights but I doubt anyone ever considered that it could be bad for U.S. economic interests as well.

At issue is something called "Cloud Technology" which allows companies or individuals to treat IT as a service that one can purchase from a utility company. Storage, processing power, even applications can be rented as a service like water or electricity. A company no longer needs to have physical servers/computer or local storage because they can just buy what they need from a Cloud Service provider. After a slow start Cloud Computing is now getting to be quite hot. Demand is growing. Politico reports that this is a 41 billion dollar industry that is projected to grow to 241 billion by 2020.

Given U.S. dominance in the computing industry one might expect that U.S. IT companies would be looking forward to reaping in record profits as a result of this new business opportunity. Well, maybe not and the Patriot Act is to blame.

Imagine that you are a multi-national corporation. Do you really want your data and critical applications stored in a country where the government can legally access that data or spy on how you do business? Other countries (like EU countries, for example) have much tougher data privacy laws and wouldn't it make much more sense to use their cloud services instead? That is exactly what is happening with European IT companies touting their cloud services as being much more secure and completely safe from the prying eyes of the U.S. government.

Tough to argue with their logic but the U.S. government, in response to outrage and concern from the U.S. IT industry, is trying. In the Politico article, Ambassador Philip Verveer, U.S. coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department, said, “We think, to some extent, it’s taking advantage of a misperception, and we’d like to clear up that misperception.” Apparently even the Obama administration is attempting to limit the damage and reassure potential foreign clients of U.S. based IT services.

I doubt it will work and many others are of the same opinion. Jon Stokes in this article in Wired Magazine points out the following reasons that the U.S. government is simply not credible on this issue:

1. Private sector policies with respect to sharing data with law enforcement are not uniform across cloud providers, and they’re often not completely clear in how they’re stated.

2. Nasty surprises routinely crop up in the press, where we learn that this or that company is turning over customer data to the feds.

3. On a more general level, the US government has shown that when it comes to surveillance, it’s willing to ignore the law time and again.

4. US government agencies don’t trust their own sensitive data to foreign clouds, and often require that such data be stored in a US-based datacenter.

5. Contrary to what cloud companies and lobbyists would have you believe, the PATRIOT Act really does give the US government very broad powers to get their mitts on your data without you ever knowing about it.

This is another great example of how, in a globalized world, lawmakers need to be very careful about the international consequences of local law. A bad decision or a poorly crafted piece of local legislation can have a terrible impact on a country's ability to compete in the global marketplace. Cloud technology is a wonderful opportunity for U.S. IT companies and it could create a lot of jobs for Americans; Alas, it appears that their efforts in this area will be hampered by a ball and chain on their legs called the Patriot Act.

EU Single Permit Directive

2012-01-22T10:51:00.000+01:00

Now this is very interesting. On December 11 of last year the European Parliament adopted a new directive that would standardize immigration procedures to create a single permit for Non-EU nationals to reside and work in the territory of a member state. This directive also grants Third-country nationals rights at the EU level to working conditions very similar to rights now enjoyed by EU nationals. This MPG article says that the directive will:

Grant them a standard set of rights comparable to those enjoyed by EU workers, such as decent, basic working conditions, recognition of educational and professional qualifications and access to social security.

Third-country nationals will also be granted treatment equal with that of EU nationals in matters concerning pay and dismissal, health and safety at work, the right to join trade unions, and access to public goods and services.

In addition to equal treatment, Non-EU nationals will be guaranteed their pensions if they move back to their home countries at exactly the same rates and conditions granted to EU nationals in the host country.

Concerning the "single permit," Europa says that this directive will create a single residence and work permit for all EU member states with:

•a single application procedure for this permit

•the rights attached to this permit

However, member-states will still be able to decide the conditions under which a residency or work permit is granted or renewed.

There are a few categories of migrants that are not covered by this directive: long-term EU residents (like me), inter-company transfers, seasonal workers and refugees.

Still, this is quite an extension of migrant rights. The member-states, however, did vote for it and once the directive is published in the Official EU Journal, they will have two years to change their national laws to conform to it.

I thnk this clearly demonstrates that EU member-states are committed to creating a common European immigration policy. Something they have been working on since 2005. As I said before, the EU moves slowly but, like a glacier, it is a powerful, nearly unstoppable, force once it gets a bit of momentum.

Snowing in Seattle

2012-01-22T09:44:00.000+01:00

It's cold and rainy in Versailles but my daughter reports that the snow is accumulating in Montréal.

As for Seattle, they have had a light dusting of the white stuff themselves. Here is a picture - the city is so pretty when it snows.

Citizenship-Based Tax Systems

2012-01-20T10:58:00.000+01:00

The United States of America has a citizenship-based tax system. Almost all other countries in the world (the only exception is Eritrea) have territorial-based tax systems. These are facts. To understand why this is so, have a look at this brief from American Citizens Abroad which I think does a splendid job of explaining the history of American tax policy and how it impacts all American citizens and Green Card holders in a globalized world.

Facts are good but for most people the consequences of citizenship-based taxation seem distant and complex. Others seem to be of the opinion that anything that will catch "tax evaders" must be a good thing in principle even if it inconveniences a "few" people (like 6 million Americans and tens of millions of immigrants and Green Card holders). I think something was lost in translation here and what we really need is a good interpreter.

A few days ago in response to an Washington Times article about FATCA and off-shore bank accounts someone took on that job and he/she did it so well that I'm going to post his analogy here.

"What if you were born in California but moved to New York early in life. You live and work and pay taxes in New York for 30 years and one day you find out you were supposed to ALSO file and pay taxes to California, because you were born there and never formally renounced your residency! You are a California Tax Evader! Since you didn’t report your New York bank account to California authorities, they are going to confiscate your assets! You have been paying full taxes and complying with New York law, but sorry buddy, you were born in California and therefore must report and pay taxes to your birth state until you renounce California residency. Oh and renouncing will cost you tons of money and California will threaten to never let you set foot across state lines if you do it. Oh, and your adult children are also facing personal bankruptcy; since you were “Californian” your children are also officially “Californian” until they renounce. Your entire family is destroyed and your New York born wife wants a divorce.
Finally, New York banks decide they will no longer let Californians have a bank accounts with them because the reporting requirements for you people are just too expensive. And California banks won’t let you have an account with them either (although they still consider you a resident), because you no longer have an address there. You may therefore have no bank account, no retirement plan, no investments, no credit card, no life.
This grotesque illustration is not at all far fetched. It is EXACTLY what US citizens are facing, if they have for any reason decided live outside of the US. US citizens who have lived outside of the states for decades, who are citizens of another country, who have paid taxes and abided by all laws, are now being pursued and persecuted in a breath-taking witch hunt.
Let me put it another way.
Mitt Romney’s parents were Italian immigrants. After they started living, working, and paying taxes in the USA should they have to keep on paying Italian taxes too? Should Italy have the power to confiscate their house because they didn’t send a report of their US banking activity to Italy? Should Mitt be considered an Italian citizen, be subject to Italian reporting and taxes, just because his parents were born there? Should he face total confiscation of his life assets because he misunderstood or didn’t even know about a reporting requirement? Should he have to hire an expensive Italian tax lawyer fill in annual reports to another country or face prison threats? That is exactly what US law does to its citizens abroad, it is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable."

That, my friends, is what citizenship-based taxation is all about. Remember, all states have the right to decide whether or not someone is a citizen of their country. Any one of you reading this who has the most tenuous connection to another state could wake up one day and find out that not only are you a dual citizen, but that you have duties and responsibilities to another state that you may have not lived in for years (or in some cases never ever lived in). The U.S. has chosen to impose this on its citizens wherever they live and work and there is really nothing to stop other states from doing the same thing to Americans, many of whom have immigrant parents or grand-parents.

The U.S. has every right to decide who its citizens are and so does every other state on the planet. However, just because a state is acting within its rights, doesn't make the outcome right. Citizenship in a democratic nation-state is based on consent, the right to effective representation and equal treatment under the law. The U.S. implementation of citizenship-based taxation violates each and every one of these principles.

China - A Destination Nation?

2012-01-19T09:16:00.001+01:00

I've been to China twice - once on business and once on a tour of Chinese start-ups and businesses for school in 2010. We saw the World Expo in Shanghai which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I love that city - so much energy and "dynamisme." As you cruise the huge biotech and industrial parks just on the outskirts of the city, you have to ask yourself, "What am I doing with my life?" It's that kind of place.

However, China was firmly fixed in my head as a country of emigration. I come from the West Coast of North America which for years has been a destination for Asians: Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Some of the instructions on my King County ballot for local elections is written in kanji. The former governor of the state of Washington is Gary Locke, a Chinese-American, who was recently named U.S. Ambassador to China by President Obama.

So I was very surprised to read that China is becoming a country of immigration. The Migration Policy Institute just published a special series called Migration in the Modern Chinese World. They talk about the Chinese immigration to other countries and the diaspora (33 million strong and a large and powerful force in the world) but all that is much less interesting to me than the idea that migrants are finding it to be a choice destination. The "pull" is obvious: a good economy, lots of opportunity, and a labor market that is experiencing shortages as the consequences of the "One Child" policy come to fruition. Low fertility today and sluggish population growth mean that filling those jobs will be a real challenge for China in the future.

Chinese emigration is still more significant than immigration but there are signs that this may change. Here are some surprising facts that I gleaned from various articles:

1. Labor shortages were so acute in some regions in this past decade that illegal immigration became a problem. Tens of thousands of undocumented laborers were imported from places like Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. There are also, for obvious reasons, significant flows of migrants from North Korea. And finally there are people coming from as far as Africa - Congo, Nigeria and Mali. You know a place is an attractive destination when people are willing to risk arrest, possible imprisonment and deportation just to be able to come to work and live there.

2. In 2007 2.85 million people came legally to China for employment. That number dipped slightly in 2009 but was up again to 2.27 million in 2010. The Chinese census counted over 1 million people from outside the mainland living in China of which 539,000 were long-term resident foreigners. Yes, in a country of over a billion people, this is a drop in the bucket, but it is still a huge number and apparently there is plenty of room for more if they have the right skills.

3. Have look at the top sending countries and prepare to go into shock. The Republic of Korea tops the list but the United States of America is in second place with around 71,000. Then comes Japan, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Canada and France are in 6th and 7th place and Germany is 9th. We know that one factor that pulls migrants to a place is the existence of a diaspora community already in place so it is very likely that future migrants to China will come from these countries. These numbers are even more significant when you consider that North Americans and Europeans don't usually know the language and can't even read it since the writing system is character-based (kanji). This is an important barrier to finding a job and integrating but it doesn't seem to be stopping them.

All this has the Chinese authorities re-examining their immigration policies. Right now they don't have rules to manage long-term foreign residents much less permanent ones. This document, The Rules for Foreigner Administration, really only applies to people on short-term visas and temporary residency permits. China seems to have realized that something more comprehensive needs to be put into place to manage international migrants and they are working on it.

I think this is a fabulous development and I hope it continues. The world knows China and the Chinese mostly through media coverage and its diaspora but that's not nearly as useful as knowing the country and the people through the eyes of their compatriots who live and work there. Long-term resident foreigners will be able to help their home countries deal with China as a rising power. It's not just business, it's understanding, which can only come when people are immersed in their host countries and know the culture deeply enough to be able to interpret it for others. And, let's face it, this is very flattering to China. For every international news story that is critical of their internal policies, one must now take into account that, well, a lot of people want to live there so perhaps there is more to the story than what the media is reporting. It's very good for their image and I think it's good for the world. China will be a major power in the 21st century and the more peaceful and positive connections that can be made now, the more likely it is that the competition within the community of nations will continue to be fierce but friendly.

Protect IP/SOPA Act

2012-01-18T07:29:00.001+01:00

This video says it all. There are protests today all over the Net. If you are a U.S. voter go here to sign an on-line petition against it.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Economic Crisis and Migration - The Exodus from the U.S.

2012-01-18T00:26:00.001+01:00

Back in October I wrote about how the economic crisis was affecting immigration in Europe. Now that I have read the MPI report, Migration and the Great Recession, I'd like to talk about the United States and how the crash of 2009 changed the migration equation.

MPI sets the stage: "The economic crisis struck following nearly two decades of unprecedented prosperity across much of the United States. For much of that period, labor demand outpaced the domestically produced new worker pipeline. The U.S. economy came to rely on large numbers of of immigrant workers, and as a result, the number of foreign born increased from 20 million in 1990 to more than 38 million in 2008. " But the official U.S. immigration system is not well-adapted to rapid changes in demand and so an informal "just in time" system (illegal immigration) filled the gaps right up to 2008.

So what happened when the crisis hit in 2009?

A mass exodus.

It is estimated that over 300,000 undocumented workers have left California alone since 2008. A July 2011 New York Times article claimed that "the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004."

In addition to the flight of undocumented workers there was also an exodus of legal immigrants. They went back to places like India and China where there was work and opportunity. This website says the Chinese Education Ministry, "estimates that the number of overseas Chinese who returned to China in 2009 having received a foreign education reached 108,000: a sharp increase of 56.2% over the previous year. In 2010, this number reached an all-time high of 134,800 (a significant proportion studied in the U.S.) " When you consider that a significant number of start-ups in the United States are created by foreigners, this is cause for concern.

Legal in-flows also decreased though not as dramatically as the illegal ones . MPI reports that, "demand for temporary employment-based visas for highly-educated immigrants also slowed measurably, with the annual quota for H1-B highly skilled visas taking more than 6 months to fill during each of the last two years compared to a matter of days or weeks in the years immediately prior to the recession." Those still coming from Europe are very different from previous waves of immigrants - they are young, well-educated and very temporary. They come to work, make their money, and go home.

I would add to this another figure that may or may not be related to the economic crisis. Recently the AARO (Association of American Residents Overseas) revised its number of Americans citizens abroad to about 6.3 Million (the previous figure was 5.5 Million). If we had better numbers would we see more native-born Americans becoming international migrants as a result of unemployment and bad economic times at home? There is not enough data on American emigration to draw any reliable conclusions and, in any case, I fear that no one really wants to know the answer.

All this demonstrates that there is a serious disconnect between the reality and the immigration debate in the United States. Politicians there seems to be just as manipulative as those in France when it comes to using this issue to get votes. It's almost surreal to listen to Michele Bachman talk about building a double-fence between the U.S. and Mexico. Is she aware that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is 9.1% and only 5.26% in Mexico? The wall(s) she proposes are completely superfluous but the voters she appeals to seem blissfully unaware of this.

In both Europe and the United States are we looking at what Laurence Gonzales would refer to as
"a failure to revise the mental map?" The old frames were 1. the rise of the EU and slow but steady growth and financial stability in the Euro-zone and 2. the "Land of opportunity" meme that has characterized the United States for much of its history. Politicians and citizens in both places seem to be operating on the assumption that nothing has fundamentally changed and so, by extension, they don't have to.

The United States is and has always been a country of immigration. Of all the things that can be said to hold Americans together, the most important may be a belief that their country is a "land of opportunity" and that everyone wishes to come to America to be a part of it. Today it is still a place where opportunity is to be found but it's not the only place. There is competition and migrants have a very effective method of expressing their preferences - not at the polls but with their feet.

Flophouse Citizenship and International Migration Reading List (Updated)

2012-01-16T09:36:00.002+01:00

I've been doing a lot of blogging recently about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. For every post I write I probably read 3-4 books. I've come across some very good titles in my research so I thought it was high time I undated this reading list. I highly recommend all the titles below - read them and you will never look at citizenship the same way again.

International Migration in the Age of Crisis and Globalization by Andres Solimano (2010).
This is a very well-written, well-argued book. The author is ambitious and confronts some of the most difficult topics around migration: Why is International Migration Such a Contentious Issue? Are Goods and Capital More Important then People? Don't Always 'Blame' the North, and so on.

International Migration and Citizenship Today by Niklaus Steiner (2009). A very fine book on the political, economic and cultural impact of immigration. He frames the discussion around two essential questions: What Criteria to Admit Migrants? and What Criteria to Grant Citizenship?

Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices edited by T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Douglas Klusmeyer (2001). This was one of the best books I read on the topic of citizenship with essays by Patrick Weil, Karen Knop and Richard T. Ford, among many others. I particularly enjoyed (and will discuss in a future post) Ford's contribution called "City-States and Citizenship" which was, for me, a real revelation.

The Politics of Citizenship in Europe by Marc Morje Howard (2009). A really fine study of the citizenship policies of the oldest member-states of the EU. Read this book to really grasp how citizenship laws have changed over time and the reasons why.

Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization by Peter Spiro (2008). Excellent book that examines how globalization has changed the value of citizenship overall and American citizenship in particular. Very thoughtful. Very well-written.

Qu'est-ce qu'un Français? by Patrick Weil (2002). Mr. Weil spent over 8 years in the archives researching this book and it is fascinating. France has been something of a test lab for just about every combination of jus soli and jus sanguinis citizenship possible. Everything has been tried and tried again. I read the book in French but it is also available in the usual places in English.

Gender and International Migration in Europe by Eleonore Kofman, Annie Phizacklea, Parvati Raghuram and Rosemary Sales (2000). If you are looking for some empirical evidence (as I was) for how migration, immigration policy and citizenship rights have different outcomes and impacts for women, this is a good place to start.

The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality by Ayelet Shacher (2009) An attack on both jus soli and jus sanguinis methods of transmitting citizenship. Fascinating argument.

Aliens in Medieval Law: the Origins of Modern Citizenship by Keechang Kim ((2000). I've been meaning to write a post about this book since it has a very original take on the historical roots of modern citizenship. I recommend it highly.

International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain edited by Caglar Ozden and Maurice Schiff for the World Bank (2006) This book contains a number of very interesting essays about the economic impact of remittances and brain drain/gain. The editors point out that the potential for economic benefit for all parties (individuals and sending and receiving countries) is substantial but policy decisions need to be made carefully (we are talking about people after all).

Let Them In: the Case for Open Borders by Jason L. Riley (2008) The author makes a very radical argument for simply opening the doors and letting people move where they wish.

Shades of Coluche - Colbert Runs for President

2012-01-15T11:08:00.002+01:00

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember the year French comedian Coluche ran for the Présidence de la République. It was back in 1980 and Valéry Giscard D'Estaing was facing a challenge from the Socialist party candidate, François Mitterrand. Coluche seemed to have thrown his hat into the ring just for fun. His motto was, "Ils nous prennent pour des imbéciles alors votons pour un imbécile !" (They are taking us for fools [the politicians] so why not vote for a fool!)

COLUCHE PRÉSIDENT !! Vidéo caspert95 sélectionnée dans Humour

It was funny, it was different and added some excitement to an otherwise rather dull race. Nobody took it very seriously until the polls results came out: Coluche got 16% of the potential vote. Think about it, 16% of the French were thinking about voting for a comedian, a modern day clown who nevertheless, in my view, had some of the most pertinent and intelligent commentary on French politics at that time. Thee poll results struck fear into the hearts of the more conventional candidates and they put pressure on him to remove himself from the race which he finally did in 1981. Mitterand went on to win that year.

30 years later something similar (and just as interesting) is happening in the U.S. Steven Colbert is an American comedian who has a television show called the Colbert Report. To understand why this show is so funny (I'm a regular viewer) you have to understand the context. In the U.S. there are quite a few Right and Left-wing personalities (not politicians) who have very popular radio and television shows; Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly to name just a few. The Colbert Report is nothing less than a spoof (a parody) of these programs. Colbert plays a self-absorbed, pompous, conservative right-wing talk show host and pokes fun at them and at American politics in general. It is hilarious and even people on the American Right find him amusing. It's just that well done.

The U.S. is right in the middle of the Republican (conservative) party state primaries and the next state on the agenda is South Carolina. Last week Public Policy Polling released a poll that showed Stephen Colbert (who is not even on the ballot) winning 5% of the vote which puts him ahead of at least one respectable (and real) candidate, Jon Huntsman. See this article from The Guardian for the details. Very embarrassing for Huntman but the real question was: what will Colbert do? And this is where things start to get mildly serious. Aside from the fact that his entering the race would most likely have a (minor) impact on the results, Colbert also runs something called a PAC (political action committee). This is a fund (perfectly legal) through which private people and organizations funnel money to and channel their support for candidates and causes. The rule is that PAC's cannot "coordinate" with the candidates in any way - nice in theory but, frankly, I doubt anyone really believes it. Colbert's PAC is called the "Colbert Super PAC" and he has apparently raised quite a bit of money. So, there were two questions in the air last week: Will Colbert run and what will he do with his PAC?

The answer to both can be found here: January 12th episode of The Colbert Report.
Watch it and either weep for the current state of the American political process or laugh yourself silly.

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It's a Long Long Road to La République

2012-01-14T20:01:00.004+01:00

Place de la République to be precise.
I headed into Paris today to work on a project with a friend and we had agreed to meet at our school which is in the 11th district near the rue de Temple. Every time I visit the area I'm struck by how much I love this part of the city which is, frankly a bit scruffy. Scruffy but lively. This is where I met and had a very long and illuminating conversation with the Class War Experts. They weren't there today but I had something in compensation for their absence - a rousing "manifestation" (excuse for a party) in support of something (or someone) but I couldn't tell what (or who). Very festive.

So I wasn't sure how to react to the news that the Place is undergoing a facelift. The beautiful statue of Marianne is surrounded by ugly green barriers and there are wires obstructing one's view of this magnificent monument.

The lady has been standing here since 1883 so maybe it is time she was tidied up a bit. The graffiti on the lion, for example, really does have to go.

Not far from Marianne is another lady. This rather odd statue stands in a park and I used to walk by her every day when I was going to school in the area. I have absolutely no idea who she is or what she represents. If anyone knows, please feel free to clue me in.

And, finally, one of my very favorite churches in Paris: the Eglise Sainte-Elizabeth de Hongrie.

Language, Nation, and State

2012-01-13T15:43:00.003+01:00

It was a good Christmas at the Flophouse. I had a number of books I had been lusting after and, lo and behold, Santa (via La Poste) graciously fulfilled my wishes. Ever since late December, I've had my nose in a book (actually I've had my nose in a book since I was 5 years old much to the despair of my loved ones) and I've just finished one that I thought you might be interested in: Language, Nation, and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age (Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies)

It's a book of essays edited by Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne about language and identity - topics that people tend to have very strong feelings about. All of the essays in the book are excellent but there was one that I thought was outstanding.

"Difference Rights and Language in France," by Alain Fenet, a professor of International and European law at the Université de Nantes. Throughout her history, France has been a multi-lingual nation and this was still true up until the 20th century. I remember a trip to Brittany about 20 years ago where I met an farmer whose standard French was very strange (he had a very odd accent.) I asked my family about it and they explained that his first language was Breton, a Celtic language that is still spoken by people in that part of the world. I found this comforting - a confirmation that one could have an accent, or not be a native French-speaker, and still be French.

Though French has been the official language of France since the 17th century, there is a world of difference between a nation's language policy and the "facts on the ground." It took centuries before multi-lingual France become mono-lingual France and even today there are holdouts in the provinces. Call these people "the enemy within" which, in some ways, remains just as threatening as the external enemy, the Anglo-Saxons and the growing hegemony of English. Fenet shows how laws to protect the French language: Bas-Lauriol Law (1975), the amendment to the French Constitution (1992) which says, "French is the language of the Republic," and the infamous Toubon Law (1994), were also fine weapons in the hands of those wishing to eliminate regional differences and marginalize local languages in the Hexagon.

Then came Europe to the rescue with the European Charter for Minority Languages. This EU charter recognizes that there are many languages in Europe and offers some protection against their elimination. This posed quite a problem for the French government and in 1999 the Conseil Constitutionnel did indeed declare that the Charter was incompatible with the French Constitution since:

The Charter conferred 'some specific rights to groups of speakers of regional and minority languages, in territories where these languages are used' and 'tended to recognize a right to practice a language other than French not only in private life but also in the public sphere.'

How did the story end? It didn't. We are the year 2012 and this is still an on-going issue, a festering sore in the heart of an otherwise blissful and trouble-free Europe. France is hardly alone here - see this document for progress of countries on the implementation of the Charter. Very recently Francois Holland, the Socialist candidate for the French presidency was questioned about it during a campaign stop in Strasbourg. He responded as any good politician would - he promised to "engage discussion" which in my mind indicates that any decision on this will be put off as long as possible.

Back to the book. All of the above came from a reading of just one of the ten essays in this book. Trust me, all the other essays are just as good, just as rich, and you can read about and admire the language policies of many states: Switzerland, Israel, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus and California. The book is a bit pricey but worth every penny.

IKEA: The Paris Subway Station Apartment

2012-01-12T08:40:00.002+01:00

This is brilliant. Ikea has installed a 54 square meter apartment right smack in the middle of a Paris RER station (A line). I live on the C line but I may have to head into that part of town just to have a look. 5 people are living in it for 6 days much to the amusement of Parisian commuters. This idea is to show people all that can be done with a small place and a little creativity.

Is the Circulaire Guéant Dead?

2012-01-11T10:47:00.000+01:00

Not quite. It's gasping for air but it still has a pulse.

After French ministers met with representatives from universities and the "Grandes Ecoles" late December (apparently they did not meet at that time with students or their organizations) the government announced that they would be releasing "une circulaire complémentaire" to the Prefectures. Le Point reported this on January 4th:

Les ministres ont décidé d'adresser aux préfets dès la semaine prochaine une circulaire complémentaire, donnant les orientations applicables à la situation spécifique des diplômés étrangers hautement qualifiés, de niveau au moins égal au master 2, qui souhaitent acquérir en France une première expérience professionnelle, conformément à la loi en vigueur.
The ministers have decided to send next week complementary instructions giving the applicable orientations to be applied to the specific situation of highly-qualified foreign graduates with at least a master 2 level who wish a first professional work experience in France, in conformity with current law.

Le Monde had more here including an admission from one government minister, Laurent Wauquiez (Higher Education) on French television that, "On s'est plantés, il faut le dire clairement." (We screwed up. It is necessary to clearly state that.) This man has my complete and total admiration - it takes enormous courage to say something like this publicly in this country.

The new text, however, is not a replacement of the original May 31 Circulaire, it is a "clarification". The Prefectures are still obliged to apply the original directive but they are to do so in such a way that, "la nécessaire maîtrise de l'immigration professionnelle ne se fasse pas au détriment de l'attractivité du système d'enseignement supérieur, ni des besoins de certaines entreprises." (the necessary controls over professional immigration do not adversely impact the attractiveness of French higher education and the needs of certain companies.)

I see. Actually, I don't. And I'm not only one who remains a bit skeptical. The latest news is that, after meeting with students, the presidents of France's Grandes Ecoles replied by complimenting the government for its willingness to move in the right direction while still insisting that further "clarifications" need to be made. French law, they say, is clear: all foreign graduates who have received a job offer commensurate with their education have the right to receive a work permit (article L311-11). End of story.

And that is where we are today. We'll see how the French government responds to this.

The Consequences of Being a U.S. Person

2012-01-10T00:03:00.000+01:00

I have spent the last few days reading and contributing over at the Isaac Brock Society and following Just Me's links on his Twitter feed. It has been a real education for me. There is a saying in French, "nul n'est censé ignorer la loi." (There is no excuse for not knowing the law.) I had no idea how ignorant I was until I met people who have done the research and do know what they are talking about.

Now that I am a little less ignorant, I would like to take this opportunity to make an important clarification about, and an appeal on behalf of, what are called "U.S. Persons." Much of what I have posted here about U.S. tax law and reporting obligations I have tied to U.S. citizenship and that turns out to be a bit misleading.

U.S. citizens, I said, are taxed on their worldwide income. This is still quite true but it is not the entire story. More accurately, I should have said, "U.S. persons" are taxed on their worldwide income. This statement is vitally important to understanding just how aberrant the U.S. tax system is (and just how dangerous the FBAR and FATCA regulations are) because the term "U.S. Persons" includes U.S. citizens but is not limited to them. Believe it or not, there are other categories of people concerned, people who are not citizens of the United States, and they have even less representation and less of a voice than overseas Americans.

A U.S. person is: a corporation or entity based in the U.S., a U.S. citizen living in the U.S. or abroad, or a Resident Alien living in the U.S. (in other words, a legal immigrant or a Green Card holder) or you meet the Substantial Presence test (i.e. you live in the U.S. for a certain number of days a year).

All these people have exactly the same tax and reporting obligations on their worldwide income. Yes, my friends, an immigrant or a Green Card holder living in the U.S. must report his or her worldwide income to the American IRS, report all his or her foreign bank accounts (even ones back in the home country) and is impacted by FATCA in much the same way as U.S. citizens.

To give you some idea of how this might work in practice, let's consider a hypothetical situation where my foreign spouse and I return to the U.S. Upon receiving his Green Card my spouse would be:

1. Required to disclose all his U.S. income AND anything he earned in France (interest, dividends, rents) on assets he acquired before entering the United States. Depending on the type of income, he may be required to pay U.S. taxes on that French income.
2. Required to fill out an FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report) disclosing all of his accounts in France and the balances.
3. And finally he would be required to fill out the new form 8938 (FATCA requirement) revealing his "foreign financial assets" (in other words just about anything he has in France).
4. Last but not least, in theory his bank in Paris would be required to turn over his account information in France to the IRS since by accepting a Green Card and residing in the U.S. he is a U.S. Person (not a citizen, mind you).

Not a pretty picture is it? Failure to comply with the above may result in draconian penalties even if no tax is due. I had no idea the U.S. tax system worked this way for immigrants and, I assure you, neither did my French spouse.

Clearly a potential immigrant to the U.S. with assets in the home or a third country would have to have a special kind of insanity to subject himself to this system with all the paperwork and potential for double-taxation. And it would do this person absolutely no good whatsoever to become a U.S. citizen since this would change nothing. On the contrary, being a citizen would actually make it worse - one might shed a Green Card relatively easily (if done before the immigrant acquired too many assets in the U.S. or abroad) but U.S. citizenship is forever unless one renounces.

You know, if I were tasked with designing a system with the maximum number of disincentives in order to prevent educated immigrants with existing assets to come to the U.S., I doubt could have done better than this. While this system has existed for some time, it was not well known until FATCA brought all these issues to light and the IRS actually started enforcing the rules. Most immigrants were never aware of them and many are now in a terrible position made all the worse because they cannot vote. I wonder if the French diaspora in the U.S. has brought this up with Mr. Courtial.

As for potential immigrants like my spouse, they have a lot of thinking to do. I suspect that the young, educated, childless ones will continue to go to the U.S. but I doubt they will naturalize and surely they will have every interest in limiting their stay. Older experienced workers with families and assets in the home country will probably avoid the U.S. in favor of places like Singapore or Canada.

Please feel free to correct me if there are any errors or omissions in what I have written here. This is a complicated subject and I am not a lawyer or an accountant. Also, I know that there are a lot of you visitors to the Flophouse are interested in immigrating and working abroad. If you have a moment, I would very much like to have your impressions on this. For U.S. citizens, how has the U.S. tax system impacted any ideas you might have had to live and work abroad? For those of you from other countries does this information make you more likely to choose another another destination over the U.S.?

Testing the Loyalty of Dual Citizens

2012-01-09T12:10:00.000+01:00

The Economist is reporting that the Dutch are proposing a new law that would limit naturalizing citizens ability to keep their nationality of origin and strip Dutch expatriates of some of their rights as well if they naturalize in their host countries. These people would become "ex-Dutch nationals" which would limit their right to return to The Netherlands and limit their ability to pass Dutch citizenship (EU citizenship) onto their children.

As I've written elsewhere, most states have reluctantly come to tolerate the idea of dual (or even plural) nationality. It's almost impossible to enforce, there is an almost endless combination of jus sanguinis and jus soli laws to be taken into account, and globalization has dramatically increased the opportunities for dual citizenship to occur. In the bad old days there were some very effective methods of limiting dual citizenship in Europe and the US: citizenship passed through the paternal line and revocation of citizenship through naturalization in another state. For example, there was a time when a Frenchwoman marrying an Italian or an American marrying a Scot became citizens of their husbands' countries even if they stayed in France or the US. As a result of this their children were nationals of their fathers' states but not of their mother's - a very practical solution but grossly unfair and quite sexist. These laws were repealed in the 20th century and just about everyone I've ever talked to thought this was a good thing.

That leaves the latter method, revocation of original citizenship upon naturalization in another state, which still gets some traction. Very few people would argue that children or women should lose their citizenships because of factors beyond their control (a parent's citizenship, sex or marital status). But many more people still see some justice in taking away the citizenship of someone who has performed an "expatriating act" like serving in a foreign military or voluntarily acquiring citizenship in another state. From the receiving state's perspective (and the perspective of many citizens of those states) it seems right that naturalizing citizens declare their loyalty to one state only.

I think a lot of this is based on uncertainty about the intentions of naturalizing citizens. Are they naturalizing out of love and commitment to the receiving state or are they doing this for reasons of convenience? No state likes to be in a position of having to evaluate the loyalty of its citizens and, with people who have multiple passports, there is the question of how that individual "ranks" his or her different nationalities. Since this is ultimately unknowable, some states ask that these people reveal their intentions by publicly shedding other loyalties. Demonstrate to us how important it is to you to be Dutch (or French or American) by going down to your embassy and renouncing your other citizenship.

In short, it is a loyalty test, and the test takers in the Dutch case are both naturalizing citizens and native-born citizens who live abroad.

If this law passes I predict the following responses:

1. The Netherlands will experience a steep rise in foreign nationals who have residency permits (permits, by the way that allow them almost all the benefits of citizenship without holding them to any obligation other than paying taxes and obeying the laws) who will refuse to become citizens. Since these residents do not feel that they can become citizens, since the price they are being asked to pay is too high, they will feel even less loyalty to The Netherlands and will see no need to integrate. A result that is likely to exacerbate the issues Dutch citizens have with their resident immigrant populations.
2. The Dutch overseas who naturalize in their host countries will unwillingly be stripped of their Dutch/EU citizenship and that will make them very bitter indeed. It is not likely that these people will continue to feel much loyalty toward The Netherlands or have any interest whatsoever in working on the homeland's behalf. In one swift act the Dutch government will turn these people from "unofficial good-will ambassadors" into something else altogether.
3. The Dutch overseas who have not yet naturalized in their host countries might be reluctant to do so thus creating Problem 1 above for the receiving state.

Proposed laws like this one, and the application of the principle in places like the U.S., reveals something quite startling: enormous insecurity on the part of some states in this globalized era. It is as if they are unsure about their power to command the loyalty and love of their own native-born citizens and they seem to have zero confidence in the attractiveness and assimilating power of their own cultures.

It is an admission of weakness, not an assertion of strength, before the forces of international migration and mondialisation. Furthermore, all countries that do this need to be very cautious. If large numbers of Dutch abroad choose their host countries over the homeland, and resident foreigners refuse to become Dutch citizens, than we will all see what Dutch citizenship is worth on the global market. Will this make Dutch citizens in the home country feel more secure and value their citizenship more or will it cause them to think less of it? And is this really something the Dutch people want the entire world to know?

Representation for Overseas Citizens - It Just Got Better for French Expats

2012-01-08T13:05:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure if French citizens abroad are aware of this but, from my standpoint, they benefit from extraordinary support from their home country - support that this American abroad can only regard with envy.

For starters there is the something called the DFAE (direction des Français à l’étranger et de l’administration consulaire). This service has over 500 people in France dedicated to expatriate issues and concerns as well as 2,700 people abroad. Their mission?

La DFAE se distingue des autres services du ministère en ce sens qu’elle traite pour l’essentiel de cas individuels, d’affaires concernant les personnes privées. Lorsqu’elle négocie une convention ou un accord, celui-ci porte toujours sur des sujets intéressant les particuliers. C’est ce qui fait la spécificité du métier consulaire et le distingue du métier diplomatique, les deux étant et devant rester intimement liés. L’activité de la direction des Français à l’étranger et de l’administration consulaire, très diverse, touche à quasiment tous les domaines de la vie, de l’acte de naissance au certificat de décès.
(The DFAE distinguishes itself from other ministries in the sense that it mostly manages individual cases, matters concerning private citizens. Whenever a treaty or convention is negotiated [with other countries] it always has an impact on topics of interest to private citizens. This is what makes the consular mission different from the diplomatic one though the two remain closely linked. The activities of the DFAE are diverse and touch all aspects of a citizen's life, from birth to death....)

And then there is the Secrétaire d’État aux Français de l’étranger (Secretary of State to the French Abroad). Yes, there is actually a government minister whose sole purpose is to travel and actually talk to French expatriates and hear their concerns. Hughes Serraf's rather tongue-in-cheek comments notwithstanding, at least he exists. The Secretary of State to the French Abroad, Edouard Courtial, visited the United States back in November of 2011 and this is what he had to say in an interview with France-Amérique :

France-Amérique : Quel est le rôle du secrétaire d'Etat aux Français de l'étranger ?

(What is the role of the Secretary of State to the French Abroad?)
Edouard Courtial : Ce poste, qui a été créé en juin dernier, est une réponse à l'évolution de la population française à l'étranger, qui a augmenté de 50 % en dix ans. Et elle continue d'augmenter de 4 % par an. Il fallait donc une adaptation institutionnelle à cette tendance.

(This post was created last June and was a response to the evolution of the French population abroad which has grown 50% in ten years. It is continuing to grow 4% every year. It was necessary that our institutions adapt to this phenomenon.)

France-Amérique : Pourquoi avez-vous décidé de vous rendre aux Etats-Unis ?
(Why did you decide to come to the United States?)
Edouard Courtial : Pour mieux comprendre les gens, il faut aller sur le terrain. Je n'ai pas besoin de théoriciens dans mon bureau à Paris qui m'expliquent les problèmes des expatriés. Cela fait 45 jours que je suis à ce poste et je suis déjà allé en Corée du Sud, en Chine, en Espagne, en Allemagne, en Haïti ou encore au Japon. Il était normal que je vienne en Amérique du Nord. Je n'apporterai des réponses qu'en écoutant les questions adressées directement par des expatriés.

(To better understand the people, it was necessary to go to them. I don't need theoreticians in my office in Paris explaining the problems of expatriates to me. After 45 days in this position I have visited South Korea, China, Spain, Germany, Haiti and Japan. So it was quite normal that I now visit the United States. I will only be able to provide answers back home if I listen to questions asked directly by expatriates.)

After reading this I had a question for Mr. Courtial - would he be willing to take on another job? Say, representing American expatriates in France before the U.S. government?

And finally, Article 24 of the 1958 Constitution establishes the right of the French living outside of France to have direct representatives in the French Senate. On the Senate website http://www.expatries.senat.fr/ I count no fewer than 12 Senators representing 1.5 million Frenchmen and women outside of France.

And if all that wasn't enough to make me green with envy, believe it or not, it just got even better for the French diaspora. In addition to the existing representation in the French Senate, this year (for the first time) French expatriates will also be electing 11 députés (representatives) to the National Assembly.

I am in awe. To my French friends who grumble a bit (especially the ones in Japan who were a bit critical of the French Embassy after the earthquake): I am sorry, mes amis, but I will take those complaints in the same spirit as I take all your criticisms of the French healthcare system. These things may not be perfect but at least they exist and, believe me, I am painfully aware of how fortunate you are to have them.

Ted Talk: The Global Power Shift

2012-01-07T10:08:00.000+01:00

Fascinating talk by Paddy Ashdown (former MP in the British Parliament). I think he may be right to call the wars of the 20th century as the "European Civil War." I had a professor at university who referred to them as "The 30 Years War of the Twentieth Century." Ashdown sees three power shifts on a global level that he thinks will destabilize us in the 21st century. Is this the end of Western hegemony in the world? Perhaps that is not the most constructive way to look at it. How about we say instead (as Ashdown points out) that the world is beginning to share a common destiny.

And here is the John Donne poem he refers to at the end of his talk:

No Man is an Island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Foreigners' Rights when Traveling Abroad

2012-01-06T10:30:00.000+01:00

What do Florence Cassez, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal all have in common?

They were all arrested while traveling or living in a country outside their country of origin. Their stories are well-known and were the subject of many articles and debates on and off-line.

This blog post is not about their guilt or innocence, nor is it a commentary on the legal systems that they have had the misfortune to become very familiar with.

I'd like to focus instead on something that all of us who travel or reside abroad ought to know: our rights if we are arrested and detained (or jailed) in a country outside of our home countries.

Yes, it does happen - more often then you might think. Around 1000 Australians are arrested abroad every year with around 200 actually going to jail. Mexico and the UK seem to be real trouble spots for Americans. Ouest France reports around 2000 Frenchmen and women in foreign prisons, many of them in Tanger.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things you should be aware of:

Local Law Wins Every Time: The most important thing to understand is that the laws of your country of citizenship do not apply in a foreign country. Strangely enough some people still don't get this. Laws (except for international law) are territorial and cannot be packed in your suitcase to be brought along in case of an emergency or a situation that does not appeal to you. You are both expected to know the laws of your destination country and to obey them even if you don't agree with or like them. Just for fun, have a look at the France Diplomatie website which has an entire page devoted to helping French tourists to understand some of the legal differences between the U.S. and France with an eye toward avoiding unfortunate incidents.

International Agreements: You have some rights under international agreements. If you have some time to kill, check out the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) and scroll down to Article 36 which, in a nutshell, says that you have 1. the right to contact your consulate without interference, 2. the right to have your consulate informed if you are detained and 3. the right to have consular officials help you with legal representation and visit you in your place of detention. Is that all? Yes, that's about it. Here is how how one jurisdiction in the U.S. (Los Angeles, California) applies the Convention. Be aware that not all countries have signed on to this protocol. This is something worth checking before you purchase that plane ticket.

Home Country Intervention: In addition to being to able to communicate with a consular officer and getting help finding a local lawyer that speaks your language, what else can they do?

Well, they can protest and try to pressure the government concerned if they and you think that you are being treated in an inhumane or unfair fashion. Sarkozy, for example, tried to intervene with the Mexican government on Florence Cassez's behalf. The U.S. government did the same with Shane Bauer and John Fattal. Neither government initially succeeded in getting its citizens released and to date only one of these stories has had a happy ending.

A quick look at the government sites I looked at were very clear that their authority, and their ability to help you, is limited in a foreign country. Read the U.S. State Department's article on Arrest or Detention of an American Citizen Abroad. Read and admire the Australian government's website which is very explicit: no free legal advice, for example, or getting you a Get Out of Jail Card. France has this procedure for its citizens abroad.

I've said it before and it's worth repeating, "know before you go" or you just might find yourself seeing a part of another country about which you really would have preferred to remain ignorant.

The 2012 Diaspora Tax Wars

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

It appears that the U.S. government has finally done something so annoying to the American Diaspora that they are actually organizing and their fury and frustration is something to see.

The issue at hand is FATCA (the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) which would require foreign FFI's (banks mostly) to report the accounts held abroad by U.S. citizens. On the citizen side (folks like me) there is a new form to be filled out to report foreign financial assets over $50,000. This Form 8938 is in addition to (not a replacement of) the already little known and often misunderstood FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report). Between FBAR and FATCA the reporting requirements are onerous and the penalties draconian. Non-compliance can result in a foreign entity's assets in the U.S. being seized and for American citizens they run the risk of having their life savings wiped out if they are audited and found wanting by one of the local IRS agencies abroad in Frankfurt, London, Paris or Beijing (yes, the American "fisc" is quite the international organization.)

FATCA is a road to hell in the service of at least one good intention. The original purpose seems to have been to expose American citizens living in the U.S. who might be hiding taxable assets abroad. Somehow in the making of this law it escaped the notice of Congress that there are around 6 million "regular folks" (Americans who live and work abroad as teachers, managers, nurses, and so on) who are directly and adversely impacted by it. An American living in London does not have bank accounts there to evade U.S. taxes - he or she has them in order to be able do manage such mundane tasks as getting paid and saving for retirement or paying rent and buying food. One very concrete and unfortunate consequence of this law is that European banks are dumping customers with U.S. citizenship as fast as they can. I can only cringe as I imagine the reaction of an overseas Americans to the news that he is no longer a valued customer but an annoyance to be reluctantly, but firmly, cast off lest his bank suffer the unpleasant attentions of the American IRS.

The heartening news is that, for the moment, their host countries seem to be on their side. Canada and the EU have already expressed their "concern" about FATCA (which I think is a diplomatic way of saying "Are you out of your minds?"). Many countries would have to revise their privacy laws to comply and there is no real benefit to them since U.S. banks do not seem inclined (and are under no obligation) to share the names and account numbers of their citizens hiding money in U.S. "low-tax" states.

However, Americans should not count too much on their host countries' support. I think it is very likely that one of the possible results of FATCA is that the U.S. government will make deals with other countries (over the heads of the U.S. states) to make U.S. account information available to foreign tax agencies. This would give foreign governments a stake in the game and a real incentive to pass their own new data collection and tax laws for their own diasporas. I believe it is already illegal for a French to have a foreign bank account abroad if he/she has not reported it to the French government. It might be very interesting (and perhaps quite lucrative) for said government to get their citizens' account information from, say, California...

As the deadline for implementation approaches, American citizens abroad are waking up and they are both fearful and furious. FATCA was the just the trigger and now there is an avalanche of discontent about a whole host of other issues: voting rights, discrimination, double taxation, citizenship rights, lack of representation. To get a feel for some of this anger I invite you to consult this selection of articles and sites:

American Citizens Abroad (ACA) They are leading the charge from the heart of Europe with their Repeal FATCA Now! campaign.
The Isaac Brock Society in Canada. "Liberty and Justice for All U.S. Persons Living in Canada and Abroad."
Renounce U.S. Citizenship - "Stop Citizenship Based Taxation - Repeal FATCA."
James Fallows FATCA series in The Atlantic:

Fatca: The Menace You'll Hear About in 2012

The Fatca Menace!

The Fatca Chronicles: Tales From China, Canada, and Estonia

A truly depressing read but, please take heart, because there is something that can be done about it (above and beyond venting your spleen on an Internet forum.) We are 6 million U.S. citizens abroad and we may not live on U.S. soil but we most definitely still have certain rights and one of those is the right to vote. Yes, every U.S. citizen wherever he or she is on this planet has the right to vote in the upcoming presidential election. 2012 will be a close race and overseas Americans can make a difference and send a message. To find out how easy it is to vote from abroad go here. And then get yourself registered and have that absentee ballot mailed to you. Just do it. Hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that Washington, D.C. does not exist is no longer a viable option.

Hallelujah Chorus - Quinhagak, Alaska

2012-01-04T09:21:00.001+01:00

And this one which was passed along by a family member in Seattle. This is the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel interpreted by 5th grade students at the Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat school of Quinhagak, Alaska.

The Origin of the Modern Calendar

2012-01-04T09:00:00.001+01:00

From Andrew Sullivan, a short but very entertaining video explaining the origins of the modern calendar

Proving Citizenship

2012-01-02T10:53:00.000+01:00

There is a rather tense debate going on the U.S. over some state's insistence on having registered voters provide identification on election day. The goal is a good one - voting is one of the last real explicit privileges of a citizen and it seems reasonable that Americans ought to provide proof of identity/citizenship before exercising that right.

However there are some problems with this and it's not just the American context that causes trouble, it's also true of France. If any one of you were asked right here, right now, to prove your citizenship, would you be able to do so to the satisfaction of the state in question? I suspect not since most of us don't carry that kind of information on our persons. A driver's license, for example, is not proof of citizenship (my French spouse has an American driver's license and he is not a citizen of the U.S.), neither is a passport or, in some cases, even a national identity card or a birth certificate. To be absolutely100% sure that you are the citizen of the country you claim AND to prove that you are not also the citizen of another country you would need to do some research.

You would have to look at many things pertaining to your ancestors: the birthplaces, marriages, countries of residence or territories and their status at the time of the births, for example. You might even have to know something about the history of the country since territories changed hands rather often in the last century. Then, once you had all that information, you would need to look at the citizenship laws prevailing in the country of residence for say, two or three generations, the laws in force at that time in the home country and then look at whatever the citizenship laws are today. Sound complicated? Indeed it is and I assure you that you might just have a nasty surprise waiting for you at the end of all your hard work. Consider these two cases which I think are excellent examples of the difficulty and complexity involved in proving citizenship.

In 2008 François Werckmeister, born in Switzerland but raised all his life in Alsace (i.e. in France) went to get his French identity card and his passport renewed and was refused. Why? Because Mr. Werckmeister's father was born in Alsace in 1909 when the area was German territory. In order for his father to be considered French he would have had to request a "certificate of re-integration" which he apparently never did and probably never needed to since he seems to have lived out his life quite happily in France. However this caused much headache for his son, who at 56, having never had a doubt that he was French, suddenly found himself not only a foreigner (Swiss/German) but also one who was "sans papiers." This meant no identity card and no passport. He did however at the time the article was written still have his voter registration card so theoretically he could still vote. How ironic is that?

Leeland Davidson, a 95-year old World War II veteran living in Centralia (state of Washington) had a similar tale. Born to American citizens living in British Columbia, Canada, his parents failed to have his birth registered in 1916. That would not really have mattered if Mr. Davidson could have proven that his parents were born in the U.S. Alas for him, his father was born in the state of Iowa several years before that state started issuing official birth certificates. So as far as the U.S. is concerned (and in spite of his military service) he is not an American citizen (he is Canadian) and if he wishes to become an American he must go through the process of naturalization - something that he is quite willing to do though he is understandably quite distressed at the necessity for it.

When I read these stories (and there are others) I came to the rather startling realization that the only people who can be absolutely sure of their citizenship status are naturalized citizens since they are usually the only ones who have had to go through the trouble of proving their former citizenship status in order to acquire a new one. For everyone else, unless he or she can prove otherwise with the appropriate documentation, there must be a doubt.

The good people who are so adamant about requesting identification/proof of citizenship at the polls might want to take this into account. The only way any of us can know our status is to do the research and then have that researched certified by the relevant authorities. This means, at the very least, requesting a "certificate of nationality" (something that exists in both France and the U.S.) from the Federal government.

Since requests for this are relatively rare in the U.S., it is said that acquiring this document can take up to a year. But if people are really serious about making sure that every potential voter showing up at the polls is, in fact, eligible to vote as a bona fide American citizen, then this is what would be required along with a national identity card (one would imagine a biometric card with photo) issued on the basis of that certificate. And it is very clear that, if required to actually prove their status, some Americans who thought they were citizens would be disenfranchised and required to go through the naturalization process before being allowed to vote. A rather sobering thought, isn't it?

Bonne Année 2012

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

Bonne Année à toutes et à tous!

Que 2012 vous apporte la paix, la prospérité et la santé.

Happy New Year, everyone!

May 2012 bring each and every one of you peace, prosperity and health.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Old Versailles Architecture

2011-12-31T08:55:00.000+01:00

When we moved back to France from Japan we chose the city of Versailles less for its charm than for its proximity to our place of work. It was not love at first sight. In Tokyo we had lived in a lovely neighborhood called Shirokanedai which was filled with small elegant houses old and new and the most amazing gardens. Tokyo was all light, even in the winter when it got very cold and sometimes snowed. Versailles seemed gloomy and damp and the only bright spot in the city was the gold of the castle which struck me at the time as being terribly gaudy - a far cry from the quiet understated elegance of Japan.

Versailles grew on me. It's a very livable city with good public markets, a fine transportation system, beautiful gardens and some very pretty architecture in the shadow of the castle (which I have never learned to love).

Two things have had a major impact on the architectural style of the city. The first is the fact that the kings made the rules: height limitations (even today almost all the building are 6 stories maximum), the slate roofs or even the style to be applied to the exterior The second is the lack of limestone in the vicinity. The builders were obliged to make do with a kind of false brick made of "un mélange de plâtre et de chaux teinté d’ocre rouge pour imiter la brique, et badigeonné d’ocre jaune pour rappeler la pierre." (A mixture of plaster and lime colored with red ocher to mimic the brick and whitewashed ocher yellow to imitate stone.) As a result of this your first impression of the architecture might be one of depressing monotony. Look closer because human beings always find a way to express themselves within the limits of whatever framework has been imposed by authority.

Exiting the younger Frenchling's tutor all I had to do was look up to find this ceramic decoration on the side of a building. The inscription says "rue du cherche midi."

The other feature here are the "volets" (the shutters). An older word for these is "persiennes" (my spouse's grandmother was still using this word at the end of the 20th century) and Versailles claims to be the first place in France to have them.

The inventor was one Antoine Duchesne who in 1727 created « les premiers contrevents en lames inclinées, depuis nommées jalousies ou persiennes, par leur ressemblance avec certaines claires-voies des sérails de Perse ». The very first ones were installed in Versailles at the residence of the Marquis de Seignelay, 8-10, rue de l’Orangerie.

Over the windows and doors of many buildings are whimsical sculptures: faces of sad or laughing men or animals like horses.

They are easy to miss but they are everywhere.

And then there is the grillwork on the balconies. From a distance they all look the same but up close you will see a remarkable variety: the curves of Louis XV, and the Troubador and "nouille" (noodle) styles among many others.

And finally there are a few (a very few) buildings that are so distinctive and so unlike the style of all the other buildings that you have to ask yourself who the owner had to pay off to be allowed to build that:

I am a very mediocre photographer and I know the pictures above do not even begin to do justice to what I saw as I walk around the older parts of the city. Happily for you, you do not need to make do with my meager efforts. The city of Versailles has published a very fine Guide des Curiosités de la Ville de Versailles. If you plan to visit the city, read this first, and then perhaps you might be inclined to skip the gilded monstrosity for a quieter kind of beauty.

Old Versailles

2011-12-29T08:28:00.000+01:00

Here we are in December of the year 2011 and you can still use this map of Versailles from 1746 to get around. Having walked much of the old town yesterday, I can personally attest to its accuracy.

Starting once again from the Rue Royale I headed south to parts of town I had never visited before.

Before the kings came, Versailles was a sleepy little village of about 100 inhabitants. Even the origins of the name are lost and all we have are educated guesses of which the most likely is the word "versail" which comes from Old French and means "cleared land" or land that has been reclaimed for farming or development. The original village was "acquired" (and I would love to know the exact meaning of that) by Louis VIII and the seeds of the city as we know it today were planted in the 17th century. With the kings and their courts came development and I have to wonder if the villagers had as much trepidation about the arrival of these Parisiens as people in Seattle had about the arrival of the Californians late in the last century. There goes the neighborhood....

In 1737 the king allowed two entrepreneurs to construct a kind of commercial development at the intersection of the Rue Royale and the Rue d'Anjou. These "baraques" were originally meant to house a public market but the venture was a failure and the buildings were finally converted into housing. 200+ years later they are still there and are called "les carrés Saint-Louis."

Today they are charming two-story structures with slate roofs and a mix of street-level commerce and apartments on the first floor.

Down at the end of the Rue Royale I took a right and tried to see The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception which is a small church that celebrates the mass using the tridentine rite but they were closed for the school holidays. Walking back up toward the castle I stumbled upon a small park called le Parc Balbi. According to the official website, the Comte de Provence purchased the land and built this park for his wife, the Comtesse de Balbi. Walking through the park I could not help but think I was born in the wrong era since I can think of nothing more pleasing than a husband who designs a garden for his wife (or mistress).

Past the King's Kitchen Garden and up to the rue de l’Indépendance Américaine (American Independence Street) where I stood before the l'hôtel des affaires étrangères et de la Marine (The Foreign Ministry and Navy). It was here that negotiations were held to end the American War of Independence which led to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. My beloved Benjamin Franklin was here. It is said that the king at the time had some misgivings about this whole venture and as later events proved, he was quite right to be concerned.

Because not too far from American Independence Street is a building in the shadows of the elegant and sumptuous castle that some consider to be the birthplace of the French Revolution, La Salle du Jeu de Paume. It was here in 1789 that the representatives of the Third Estate declared for a Constitution (effectively the end of the monarchy.)

Tomorrow: More of Old Versailles.