On becoming French

Ann sent me an email reminding us that although people can help with the simple French forms and you will not have an exam, you will still need to have an "oral chat" with the prefecture and the gendarmes, so a competent level of French will be needed.
But surely after the 5 years living here, everyone will of course have conversational French!
Malc read the email Ann, told me about it but I cannot find it anywhere.(found it, and it says much the same as above).
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Nouveaux citoyens francais

Regular contributor to Taglines, Ginny Jenkins and her husband Ross, are familiar  figures in so many areas of our life, from Fifi to the restoration of the church of St Corneille in Puycelsi. But they are also involved in many French projects and have taken the ultimate step of taking French nationality. In a ceremony at the Prefecture of the Tarn they were welcomed to French citizenship by the prefect.
Like many of us, they spent holidays in France and attracted to the beauty of the area they decided to settle in Puycelsi in 2002. Ross said that amongst other benefits they will now be able to vote in the 2017 Presidential elections.
Asked about Brexit Ginny was characteristically categorical: "the English are stupid if they vote for Brexit" - note that the Scots are excluded from that!

Ross et Ginny Jenkis (sic) in the Depeche yesterday

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That test is not a doddle

Hi Val,

 Ginny is right about not having to take the Test de Connaisance

de Francais if you are over 60 but...... She is very wrong about the
test being a doddle. I sat it in April and found it extremely hard.
Yes the test is multiple choice but you have to sit in a large room with
around 15 other people. The test is timed and there were 29 questions
in 25 minutes. Not too hard you would think but these questions start
easy and get progressively up to French fluency standard, where not only
do you have to understand fully the nuances of a fuzzy sounding clip but
read and understand (or hear and understand) 5 very long complex
sentences with similar meanings and then choose the right one. The
conversation part of the test was indeed a doddle but the first bit was
dreadful !
I was unfortunate when I took my test as a row broke out at the back of
the room with some candidates and the invigilator which I found very
distracting. All in all, a highly stressful day and one I was glad to
get over. Thankfully, I scored B2 on the test (B1 is the minimum
required for french citizenship) and therefore never have to go through
it again.
Anne in Castanet
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French citizenship

Hi Val and Malc

Do you have to take a French exam if you want to take French citizenship after you have retired?
Please help
Helene
Val says Ginny and Ross have just taken citizenship,  I think you have interviews not an exam. I am sure readers will now.

Ginny replies   
No, you are exempt from the language exam over the age of 60. I think that the presumption is that good communication is only needed if you are looking for work. However we were under a misaprehension and studied for the exam. It was an absolute doddle - multichoice questions and then a discussion with a panel of three. 

This was why we were rather taken aback by the challenging nature of interview we had but as I have said to many, the beurocrat probably rapidly assessed that our French was quite adiquate and decided to liven up her morning.

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French nationality "too difficult"

The "star" TV presenter of M6's "Queen of Shopping", Cristina Cordula has admitted that she has abandoned her efforts to apply for French naturalisation because it is too complex.
"I have lived here 30 years, I have a job and I pay my taxes, but you need a mile long dossier".
And she added that you start to queue at 5 in the morning and when it's your turn there is always a document missing. Then when you return with the papers, the translation is wrong, or out of date.
Ms Cordula is from Brazil, an ex-top model has decided to give up and continue to stay here with her permit de sejour.
Things are presumably simpler for us EU citizens, but what if UK quits the EU?
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