Living in France, le blog

And I mean right now: as we speak, the far-right National Front candidate for the French presidency is trying to schmooze with American big-wigs from across the political spectrum, all in an effort to bolster her international credibility.

Dear loyal readers:

Sorry about April. Stuff was going on. People to see, places to go, conspiracies to undermine. But just because I stopped writing doesn't mean the French press didn't continue to turn out legions of interesting little stories that probably didn't make it to your English-language news aggregator. Here are some uncharacteristically brief highlights.

Throughout the health care reform debate currently raging in the United States, parties on all sides have made regular, oblique references to the French health care system, framing it as either a pinnacle of progress or a dire cautionary tale. The problem seems to be that these references, ranging from Michael Moore's glossy and biased homage in Sicko to Rush Limbaugh's equation of French health care with French inadequacy in World War II, are never based on any real assessment of the system. As an American who has lived under and sought care from both systems, I thought it might be useful for people to read an unbiased, factual account of how health care here actually works. While I have my opinions on the subject—after all, you know what they say about opinions—for this post I will keep my politics to myself and stick to the facts as I have lived them.

Although French administration can be complicated, most of the foreigners who come here to live or for prolonged visits do eventually find their way to legal resident status: this post contains a basic overview of the ever-changing landscape of French immigration in the context of the latest European Union legislation.