Many English speakers living in France have registered as self-employed micro-entrepreneurs. Running a small business always has its challenges, but 2020 was an exceptionally difficult year. In this comprehensive article we cover the support measures in place and other information to highlight changes for the coming year.

Like many of you, we usually do a year-in-review in December and a look ahead to the New Year. And also like you, our 2020 turned out radically different from the outlook last December! Pretty much nothing happened as planned this year.

“Vineyards as far as the eye can see”… That phrase really sums up the first impression of Canal Lirou, the administrative name given to a group of communes situated somewhere between Carcassonne, Montpellier and Narbonne.

The French use the term commune frequently, as there are over 30,000 of them here! It identifies which administration center, or town hall mairie, is responsible for that geographically defined area – whether it’s a city borough or a hamlet.

Time is ticking! If you’re British, you may be thinking it’s already too late and your dream to live in France is lost. It’s not – there is still time! Not much of course, as you need to establish an address in France before 31 December, 2020. And the perfect storm of COVID-19 plus Brexit has made it extremely difficult to get to France and do a property search. That’s why we at Renestance have reached out to our local community of internationals to compile a list of places ready to receive you and provide you with an official French address.

In this modern age, posting letters and cards is less common than ever before, but it’s still very much a part of life in France – a nation renowned for its love of paperwork and bureaucracy!

Like all things in a new culture, there are some things to get used to when it comes to letter-writing French-style.

This morning, before I’d even turned on my phone, the hair salon called to move my appointment up to today, our last day before five weeks of lockdown in France. There was much more traffic on the road as I took our son to his last day of baseball camp, as everyone is scrambling to get last things done and stock up on essentials before midnight. My colleague, Wim, posted in our company slack channel that no real estate agents are accepting appointments for visits now. Other activities and appointments have been cancelled for our family, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to take our cats to the vet on Saturday. We’re in that low-scale disaster relief mode when something unexpected throws all your plans and routines up in the air.