British expats in France delivered blow as 90-day visa rule plea is thrown out | World | News
A French court has dealt a massive blow to British expats and UK nationals dreaming of buying a second home in France.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Council rejected an amendment to the immigration bill that would have scrapped the 90-day rule for some Brits – ruling it unconstitutional.
This legislation would have allowed the 86,000 Britons who own a second home in France to be automatically granted a long-stay visa.
As a consequence, these UK nationals would have been able to spend as much time as they wanted in France, and would have had to be careful with how many days they spent in the EU only after crossing the French border.
The amendment was tabled by French senator Martine Berthet in November after receiving complaints from British second-home owners in her region, the Savoie.
Upon promoting her amendment, Ms Berthet said UK nationals can’t contribute to the local economy with the 90-day rule in place.
Others in France – as well as in Spain – had previously lamented that the fact that Britons are no longer going to their properties as often as they previously were was hurting the local economy of second-home hotspots.
Notably, President Emmanuel Macron‘s government did not back the amendment last year.
The amendment had sparked huge hopes among expats and wannabe second-home owners in France, and prompted the number of Britons looking for a property in the EU country to surge six-fold over the past few months.
The court’s decision is final as there is no right to appeal against the Constitutional Council in France.
The 90-day rule started affecting Britons after Brexit. It bars non-EU nationals from remaining in the whole territory of the European Union for more than 90 days within a 180-day period.
As it stands, if second-home owners want to stay longer in France, they need to apply for a temporary long-stay visa of up to six months.
The French court ruling came only a few weeks after the introduction of new rules agreed by Britain and France to make it easier for French pupils to go on school trips to the UK after Brexit.
The fresh regulation, come into effect on December 28, allows France’s students who are EU nationals to enter Britain using only their ID cards rather than a passport, while non-EU citizens who study in France don’t need to apply for a costly visa to enter the UK as part of the school trip.
The new rules apply only to those aged 18 or under who are studying at a school or educational institution in France that is registered with the French Education Ministry.