PROPERTY DECLARATION

A few readers have expressed difficulties in completing the new obligatory property declaration, which has a limit of 30 June this year (please refer to Lindsey’s article, on page 19 for more details). If you are experiencing issues for this declaration, the best advice is to visit your local tax office in person so they can help you. You can also call the service d’information des impôts via their telephone line on 0809 401 401. The lines are open between 8:30am and 7pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. Expect delays in getting through, it has been publicised they have received 150,000 enquiries since January regarding the new property declaration.

Grants For Village Shops

Anewgrant ofupto80,000€ is now available for people opening new shops in rural areas. Insee (the statistics agency) found that 21,000 communes (which represents 62% of the total number in France) have no shops. In 1980, only 25% were without shops. Eligible shops should beeithersituatedinvillagesor be mobile (for example, fishmongers, butchers etc.), that used to be a feature of rural life. Food shops will be givenpriorityforthegrant.To apply for the grant you need to contact your prefecture.

France’s Emergency Alert System

A group of French cyclists have made it into the Guinness Book of Records by cycling a 1025km route in the shape of a dinosaur. The trip saw them cycle through Cher, Saôneet-Loire, Indre, Nièvre, Creuse and Puy-de-Dôme. Using the Strava GPS app, creative cyclists and runners have been designing ‘Strava Art’! Visit Strava’s Facebook page for more examples from around the world.

You may have heard about the UK recently testing their new national alert system on mobile phones and are wondering if France has the same. FR-Alert has been operational since last June, sending messages to a group of people in a certain geographical area, as well as nationwide. The system is triggered if there is a natural disaster (e.g. storms, cyclones, fires), a biological or chemical accident (e.g. gas leaks, nuclear incidents), health accidents (pandemics, agri-food incidents), technological and industrial accidents (malfunction of telecommunication systems, serious accidents on road, rail or air networks, industrial incidents) or a serious public security issue (e.g. an act of terrorism). As with the system in the UK, it doesn’t work if the phone is switched off or in flight mode but it will work if it’s on silent. No registration for the system is needed. The system works by cell broadcast, which means it uses radio waves (not SMS) from telecommunication antennas, which is sent to all phones within a certain radius of the antenna. Mobiles that are out of the 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G signal range will not receive the alert. For more information visit: www.fr-alert.gouv.fr