Let them vote – the race to the Palace

The Foothills of the Pyrenees this week in the Spring sunshine

The French do not believe in simplifying anything more than necessary, particularly when it comes to any official process; bureaucracy – and one’s ability to deal with it – being the basis of the French class system (not that the French like to admit to a class system.) 

Hence, the French presidential election process is complex and full of rules and regulations; even to get on the ballot, candidates need signatures of 500 elected officials. Once this has been achieved, there is not just one round of voting but two. For 2012 the official candidates are Eva Joly, Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Philippe Poutou, Nathalie Arthaud, Jacques Cheminade, François Bayrou, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and François Hollande. The most notable name missing is Dominique de Villepin, who didn’t achieve the necessary 500 signatures. The first round of the election is April 22nd, with the second on May 6th. At the moment, Hollande is leading the race with Sarkozy a close second.

During the first part of the official campaign period - March 20th to April 9th - candidates have to be given the same amount of coverage on television and radio. This sounds fair but in reality what actually happens is that for some of the lesser known candidates, media channels run repeats of interviews or rallies late at night or early in the morning to ensure that the rules are met. However, from April 9th to 20th all candidates also have to be given the same type of air time; in other words if one candidate is interviewed on the evening news, then all the other candidates have to be interviewed for the same duration and at the same time.

The recovery of the French economy seems to be the main concern of this 2012 campaign although security and immigration are also a big focus. The property market in general remains an important topic mainly focusing on public housing and low energy-consumption buildings, whose number should be – according to all candidates – dramatically increased.

Although the loss of France’s triple A rating in January didn’t seem to have an effect at all on the property market, usually a forthcoming presidential causes a slight decrease in property sales and in the number of new properties coming onto the market. So far this time however, the market seems to have generally ignored the elections and property sales are strong, perhaps because France seems to be a much safer bet than most of its neighbours during the current economic crisis. Plus of course the interest rates here have remained low and stable and no candidate has proposed any drastic change in estate laws.

Whatever the outcome of the election– which I certainly would not dare to predict – it seems safe to say that French property remains as good an investment as ever and the country still offers the best available mortgage rates in Europe. Most importantly, here in this lovely part of South West France, much as everyone loves discussing politics, what really matters is family, friends, good food and good wine and enjoying life each day as it comes. Whoever wins the election and even if Europe goes into complete financial meltdown, I don’t really think much will change here.

It's all in the detail

This is a bit of a méli-mélo or hotchpotch of a blog today because I have one snippet of information that is fascinating but useless and another which is boring but highly useful! So with which to start?

Let’s get changes to french inheritance law out of the way first which will have an important affect on Britons and non-French EU nationals. Previously (and thanks to Napoleon), everyone owning property in France was subject to France’s inheritance laws which meant that, on the death of one spouse, their half of the property was automatically passed to their children rather than to the surviving spouse. This rule was introduced to prevent children being disinherited by their parents and although the surviving spouse was allowed to continue to live in the property, he or she did not fully own it and could not sell it without agreement of the children and giving them half of the proceeds.

While this is still the case for French citizens, the European parliament has now passed a regulation which allows expats in France to dictate in a will that they want the law of the state of their nationality to apply to their estate and not French inheritance law. This, in effect, means Britons in particular can leave their estate to whoever they wish and not be bound by France’s strict inheritance rules as at present, which is great news for my clients as it takes away one of the last complications of buying property in France.

So onto something far less useful but a little more interesting: Did you know that Beethoven used to keep 60 coffee beans on his desk. Why 60? Well apparently 60 is the magical number of beans that it takes to make 7 grams of coffee - which in turn will give you the perfect shot of coffee. Of course the exact formula of coffee beans make the difference, the degree of roasting and no doubt the side of the bush that they were picked from. I have never had much time for bean counters but a cup of coffee is far more important than the bottom line (I hope my accountant isn’t reading this) and this is one theory I am certainly looking forward to trying out.