On the 18 September, an e-mail alerted me to a new document to be read on the Pôle Emploi website. A relevé de situation awaited, advising 28 days of payments to be made for the month of August. As promised, the allocations had been backdated to the day of registration at the Pôle Emploi in Albertville on the 4 August.

Given the complexity of bureaucratic paperwork in France, the relevé de situation is surprisingly simple to read. The header of the table gives you the dates covered by the statement, the following lines tell you how much you’re going to be paid, and the columns to the left list any deductions. On the example below you can see I only have one such deduction, a small percentage of the allocations that is deducted at source and paid into the state pension pot.

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I admit to being a bit disheartened when the completed E301 finally arrived from HMRC; had I really been waiting so long for a two-page document printed on fax paper? Gathering up my folder of Pôle Emploi papers just in case I might need to explain things anew to a different advisor, I noticed one of them had been annotated with an instruction to present “E310 + bulletins de paie.” Providing payslips from the previous 5 months in France was not a problem, but did she mean I needed payslips from the UK to match the time frame on the E301? Gathering up what I had with me in France amounted to almost exactly three years of payslips going back from the date that day, but only two years of time covered by the E301. Then there was the issue of a well-known holiday company who don’t even issue payslips, from whom I only had a P45.

At the Pôle Emploi office in Albertville, I was greeted by the same attendant who had processed my registration interview but, sadly, she seemed as unsure as me what was meant by the annotation. After a minute or two of uncertainty I handed over what I had, saying simply, ‘here’s three years’ worth,’ and hoped for the best.
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The registration interview at the Pôle Emploi in Albertville passed without any major hassle and in the pleasant enough surroundings of a bright and quiet office. Obviously, experiences will differ, but for me things went a little like this:

Turning up a few minutes before my appointment, I entered the offices and handed over the printouts from the online registration process and some ID to the advisors on reception. Shortly afterwards I taken through to a 1:1 interview with an advisor who transferred everything to the computer systems and discussed the sort of work I would like to do. By now, the value of having already translated my CV in to French had become clear, saving a lot of time and confusion. It may take a while but I would strongly recommend it, especially if, like me, your French is less than fluent.

I’ve never signed on before so cannot compare this experience to anything else, but it was quite surprising how many chances job-hunters in France are given to eliminate any possibility of actually finding work. I left the 1:1 interview with my portfolio set up to only alert me to any job opportunities for Ski Technicians paying a minimum of 1500 € per month and based within 5 minutes of my current address. The chances of getting such work in the middle of the summer are slim to say the least…
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For a couple of seasons now I’ve been lucky enough to work under a French contract, which means my social contributions are paid in France. A benefit of this is that if I injure myself – as happened this winter season – I can get treatment here in France instead of being moved on to ‘Chalet Gatwick’ and the lottery of the NHS.

It also means you get lots of lovely and incomprehensible paperwork when your contract expires at the end of a season, an important piece of which is your ATTESTATION ASSEDIC. This is a summary of your earnings and contributions paid over the course of your employment and every employer is obliged to give you one. It’s a P45 in many respects, except this is France so it’s an A4-sized piece of paper.

Assédic is a hangover from the old system and you’ll still hear it used in the same way Brits refer to ‘the dole’, but due to recent restructuring all official paperwork now refers to the new combined unemployment benefit office and jobseeker centre network called the Pôle Emploi. Unlike many reforms in the UK however, more was changed than just the departmental stationery. A crucial element of the reforms was an alteration of the qualifying criteria for unemployment benefit. Previously, someone had to have worked a minimum of so many hours or so many months in a set time frame, which essentially worked out at six months and so ruled out many season workers, especially first time ones. The new limit for joining is four months, so, after four months working on a French contract under which you (and your employer) have paid contributions you are entitled to register as a job seeker and receive unemployment benefit.

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If you’ve travelled on a French motorway you’ve probably noticed the large orange t hanging over the left-hand lanes at the toll booths. This refers to Liber-t (‘liberty’), the brand name for the automated payment beeper used on the French motorway network (aka a ‘badge’). The benefit for French drivers is mainly avoiding queues at the tollbooths but my interest stemmed from the injuries to my knee making it hard to reach across the car to exchange cash and tickets with the machine or booth attendant at my passenger-side window. With the badge, I just slow to a crawl and approach the barrier, which then opens automatically. The journey is recorded and the charges debited from my bank account once a month.

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