Duel

December 2024

Christmas is around the corner, and my office will be open for less than two weeks before closing for the holidays on Friday, December 13th. 

I would like to wish you all happy holidays. We can hope that 2025 will bring what we wish for, even though 2024 did not do it for about half the American population. I hope we all can find a way to sincerely exchange best wishes with each other, even though in some instances it might take a near miracle. There will always be worries and looming dangers. The aftermath of the US election has resulted in a wide range of emotions and a lot of uncertainty about the future. That being said, I wish you all.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 

Duel is a 1971 American road action-thriller television film directed by Steven Spielberg. It concerns a traveling salesman, played by Dennis Weaver, driving his car through rural California to meet a client when he finds himself terrorized by the mostly unseen driver of a semi-trailer truck. The screenplay is by Richard Matheson, adapting his short story of the same name published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy magazine. The story was and based on an incident on November 22nd, 1963, when a trucker dangerously cut Matheson off on a California freeway.

I associate two very different thoughts with the plot of this movie. What makes the film so scary is that, since we never know anything about the truck driver, the truck becomes a character that seems absolutely determined to kill the traveling salesman.

During the US presidential campaign, each side warned and often complained that the other side planned to destroy American democracy. What I heard was something like this: “If the other side wins, we will be victims of their wrath!” It went way beyond just winning or losing an election.

The Republican Party will soon control the White House and Congress. Its message during the interim is that its plan will be carried out with full force because it has a mandate from the people. This message gives the impression that there will no longer be any guide rails, oversight, etc. The Senate is likely to approve the announced Cabinet nominees. It will be interesting in the next several months to see the balance of power between the White House and Congress.

The Encycopaedia Britannica describes a duel as “a combat between persons, armed with lethal weapons, which is held according to prearranged rules to settle a quarrel or a point of honor. It is an alternative to having recourse to the usual process of justice.”

In the past, the expected outcome of a duel was the death of one of the combatants. In the movie, the truck loses, and its driver dies, while the traveling salesman survives. I continue to hope that there will be a strong spirit of compromise after these elections. One can hope. One can be a militant for peace and reconciliation. I have always dreamed of a time when all people could live side by side, tolerant of their respective differences.

A REGALIAN STATE: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S POLICIES

I followed the entire campaign carefully and listened to both sides, as I wanted to understand the ins and outs of each candidate’s vision. Most people in the media stated that Kamala Harris’s policies were well described with plenty of details. Donald Trump’s policies were not as easy to identify and evaluate, as he did not give many details. Unlike in the previous election, the definitive result was announced right away. Ms. Harris conceded the next day, November 6th. Almost immediately, President-elect Trump and the media started mentioning the names of proposed Cabinet members. Now much of the focus is on their personalities and expertise and, on the Republican side, how great they are or, among Democrats, how bad.

It took me a couple of days to realize that Mr. Trump’s governing vision was quite out of the ordinary. What I saw took me back to law school, studying constitutional law and the two fundamentally different forms of government, including within the scope of a democracy. These are the regalian state and the welfare state.

The regalian functions of government are generally understood to be:

The regalian functions of government are generally understood to be:

• ensuring external security through diplomacy and territorial defense
• ensuring internal security and maintaining public order, notably through police
• defining the law and dispensing justice
• securing monetary sovereignty by issuing money, notably through a central bank
• maintaining budgetary sovereignty by approving the budget, levying taxes, and managing public finances.

The welfare function of government can be defined as:

A system whereby the government undertakes to protect the health and well-being of citizens, especially those in financial or social need, through grants, pensions, and other benefits.

All Western countries have so far pursued various versions of a welfare state. The Western European countries have more or less achieved the maximum that can be done regarding the basic necessities of life. The USA has Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare programs such as food stamps, the Affordable Care Act, and so on. The US welfare state is thus less extensive than those in Europe, but there has been an attempt since WWII to move in the direction of improving and maintaining such programs. Democratic administrations have done more than Republican ones in this respect, and even this could be debated if the review goes all the way back to 1945.

President-elect Trump and the people he has chosen all say that several agencies will be eliminated, including the programs mentioned above. In short, the coming administration wants to create a regalian state as much as possible, definitively abandoning the welfare state. This is a radical approach to government.

Europe’s absolute monarchies were all regalian states. Louis XIV was famous for supposedly stating, “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”). In short, he was all-powerful. The French Revolution and later Napoleon started to create a welfare state, even though Napoleon was emperor and a dictator. The founding fathers of the USA also had a kind of welfare state vision. In the archetypical Old West or Wild West, from about the 1850s to 1919, the federal government imposed law and order, the absolute minimum the regalian state must provide, as quickly as possible.

Attempts to downsize the government started picking up steam with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1981. They really took off, however, after February 20th, 2009, the day a Nationwide Tea Party Coalition held a conference call in which around 50 conservative activists participated. Supporters of the Tea Party movement would have a major impact on internal Republican Party politics. In other words, such ideas in the USA are hardly new, but now there is a possibility of people in power acting on them in a truly radical way.

KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE USA
Ever since moving to my current office in 2016, I have thought of writing about some obvious ways France differs from America. It started with the fact that my post office, just around the corner from my office, is identified by the Catholic name Sainte Marguerite. The building next to it is a kindergarten. The next building, facing the post office, is a drag theater. I have never heard any of my neighbors comment about this. When I point out the situation to Americans as we walk by these three buildings, they are always surprised.

Saints’ names are used so much in France. It can be where it is perfectly normal; it is for the square facing a church and the street in front of it to share the same name. It does not take long for tourists to see how prevalent Catholic names are. Even some municipalities are named for saints.

A recent poll in France found that 51% of respondents said they did not believe in God, while 44% said they did. Of those polled, 29% said they were Catholic, 10% identified as Muslim, and 9% professed other Christian affiliations. The thing I find especially interesting is that 50% of the French population claims some relationship with Christianity. This means a significant portion of French people do not believe in God but see themselves as Catholic. Let me explain this oddity within the French culture.

As France has been molded by the Catholic faith for centuries, society manifests this environment and these ties. Frequently couples who are both nonbelievers get married in a Catholic church because it is a family tradition. Another illustration is the French national holidays. Six of the 11 are religious: Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Assumption of Mary, All Saints, and Christmas.

Many guidebooks and blogs draw comparisons between France and other countries one item at a time, singling out the differences. This can be useful information as well as entertaining for many. Such resources will have sections on tenants, employees, health coverage (Assurance-Maladie), banking, and more.

Seeing an image is often more powerful than reading a long, detailed description. Many Americans in France have a hard time accepting the changes they need to make in how they live to adapt to life here. Regardless of how many books, movies, and documentaries people aspiring to move to France, Americans never really register deep down how different French life is!

It takes a personal, vivid experience of time in France as an immigrant, no longer a tourist, for the difference to sink in. Immigrants then realize how much they need to change and how far they must go out of their comfort zone. They often disbelieve that such change is really needed. They are sure they can manage the transition without having to go so far in changing who they think they are. But humans can be a lot more adaptable than they think. Every foreigner moving to France to settle as an immigrant goes through a reality check, often quite a painful experience, before finally recognizing what big changes are needed to have a pleasant and fruitful life in France.

Sometimes, personally experiencing something that to American common sense can seem a complete oddity will help people accept living in a new world, a new environment, pretty much a new everything. Maybe newcomers should try walking to the Cité Souzy, at the southern end of the 11th district. Looking at those three buildings could help some unsettled foreigners get over what is holding them back.

INCREASE IN URSSAF SOCIAL CHARGES
Many of my clients have asked for an explanation regarding the increase in social charges collected by URSSAF. The official explanation seems flimsy to me. The rise is supposed to secure the future of the French retirement organization CIPAV to keep it well-funded. The reality is that France is deep in debt, and many measures to improve its solvency will be taken.

Here is the schedule of the graduated increase over the next 18 months. It started at a rate of 21.1% of gross income. From July 1st to December 31st, 2024, it is 23.1%, with two more increases to come:
– from January 1st to December 31st, 2025: 24.6%
– starting January 1st, 2026: 26.1%.

There is not much I can say except that this is a truly sharp increase.

“WHY ARE THE PREFECTURE PROCEDURES SO SLOW?”
I hear this question all the time on forums and elsewhere in the expat community. I do not yet have the complete explanation, but I know enough to understand what has happened.

Before the COVID pandemic, everything related to immigration procedures included an in-person meeting with a civil servant, who first reviewed the file. Many applicants had the experience of hearing this civil servant say condescendingly that the file was not complete, then hand-write the so-called missing documents on a small piece of paper and issue a new appointment. Those who were in France in those days remember! The good side of this was that no matter how unpleasant the civil servants were, they told the applicant what was missing and sometimes gave an explanation.

Often when I discussed a case with the civil servants, they accepted a different document in place of one that was on the list. Nevertheless, I will never forget the long hours waiting to be called and having the impression that no one was working for half the day. I feel the same when I recall waiting in line outside the prefecture before it opened; sometimes one needed to be there several hours beforehand.

Today there are hardly any appointments at the post-pandemic prefecture. Increasingly, procedures are done completely online and one goes to the prefecture only to pick up the plastic carte de séjour. The many benefits of this new approach are real, especially when nothing is missing in the file and it is approved on the first try.

Prefectures across France reassigned their workforce, asking who would agree to review files online and who wanted to stay in the office open to the public. I learned that one office somewhere in France gets all the requests submitted through the Étrangers en France website and reassigns them to the appropriate prefecture, which means your request is rarely reviewed by the prefecture you belong to geographically. It also means a couple sending two basically identical files can have them reviewed by different civil servants in separate locations who probably have differing expectations as to the documents that should be submitted, e.g. for the visiteur immigration status. One reviewer might ask for a birth certificate, marriage license, or spouse’s passport, even though none of these are needed. But if you say you are married, the civil servant may want proof of it and who the spouse is.

Below is a basic outline of the current steps I have identified in these online immigration procedures.

1. You can submit a renewal request four months before the expiration date to have a chance to complete the procedure while holding a valid French ID the entire time. You will probably be asked first to change your password, as the system considers it obsolete after three months, according to my observations.

2. Expect at least one request for more documents, possibly including the translation of documents into French. Be sure to check your junk/spam mailbox, as ANEF emails almost always go there. And you will need to log on to your ANEF account to know what they are asking of you.

3. If your carte de séjour has expired or is about to, at about the same time as you are asked for more documents you should receive an attestation de prolongation d’instruction that extends the card’s validity and ensures that you are still legal in France. It is quite important to be able to show this document when asked to prove your legal status by the French administration, an employer, or others.

4. It currently takes about two months for the request to be approved once they have all the documents they have asked for. When that happens, you will receive a statement of approval, an attestation de décision favorable.Valid for three months, it will allow you to travel after your carte de séjour expires. That is important because …

5. … after you receive the attestation, it will still take three or four months before the carte de séjour is ready to be picked up. In my experience, the prefecture sends text messages when the card is ready only about 50% of the time. Hence, you should make a note in your agenda to contact the prefecture after that amount of time. On the page linked below, you can communicate with the prefecture about picking up the card. Do not book the appointment without getting confirmation that the card is there; otherwise, the civil servants will ask you to leave the line and exit the prefecture, not even giving you a chance to ask why.https://www.prefecturedepolice.interieur.gouv.fr/demarches-et-services-en-ligne/particulier/ecrire-au-bureau-des-titres-de-sejour

SHIP STUDIO IS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL STARTING JANUARY 1ST, 2025
The SHIP studio is currently available to rent on January 1st. The dedicated website for this studio details everything there is to know about it and my neighborhood, which is located in the 11th district, and the link is below. It has been months since I started working on the website. I do hope the studio will be occupied most of the year 2025; the rent stays the same, 1,400€, and it includes everything.
https://www.jeantaquet.com/home-in-paris

OFFICE CLOSED FOR CHRISTMAS VACATION
The office will close for three weeks over the Christmas holidays, starting on Friday, December 13th in the evening and reopening on the morning of Monday, January 6th. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. The service I offer of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed. Of course, Sarah or I will honor prefecture meetings already scheduled, as well as a couple of other engagements.Best regards,

Best regards,