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How to make USD100k/year without working... a la Francaise!
Here's how...
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Fallen high-flyers exploit French loophole...
THEY were denounced as traitors when they left France for lucrative jobs in London, and as irresponsible fools when crisis overtook the global economy.
Now French traders dismissed by banks in London are at the centre of a new furore after it emerged that many of them were exploiting France's generous welfare system to claim unemployment benefit of more than E75,000 (USD96,000) a year.
"I find it very shocking," Alain Vidalies, an opposition Socialist MP who raised the issue in parliament last week, said. "These people went to London to earn lots of money when the economy was booming there, and as soon as the wind turned they have come back to France and they are using a trick to ensure a very high revenue.
"It's not acceptable."
The controversy has further dented the reputation of a profession accused by President Nicolas Sarkozy of plunging the world into "catastrophe" through ill-judged speculation.
But it has also served to highlight flaws in a French social security system seen by its supporters as a safety net in times of turbulence and by its detractors as an unsustainable burden for the national economy.
Under French rules, the jobless are entitled to unemployment benefit equivalent to 57.4 per cent of their salary if they earned more than E1845.88 a month in their last job and up to 75 per cent if they earned less than that. Payments are made for 23 months and there is a ceiling of E6366.80 a month.
In most circumstances, it is impossible for workers to receive French unemployment benefit if they have been employed in another country, but they need to do only one day of work in France to be able to make a claim there. And if they have worked fewer than 28 days, that claim will be based upon their previous salary.
In other words, traders earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in London need to do a few days' work in a fast-food restaurant or a shop in Paris to ensure a revenue of E76,401.60 a year for almost two years.
Some do a shift in McDonald's. Mathieu, a trader sacked by a London bank, told the weekly magazine Le Point that he would do a day's babysitting to obtain French unemployment benefit on the basis of his British salary. "It'll be enough to cover my airplane tickets and my telephone bills," he said, adding that he was planning to look for a new job in Hong Kong.
Officials at the Pole Emploi, the French unemployment office, said that 24 claimants were receiving the maximum of E6366.80 a month after a job overseas. That figure dates from the northern autumn and Mr Vidalies said that the number had climbed steeply since then. "I think there must be several hundred, and they're getting the sort of revenue from unemployment benefit that most people cannot dream about even when they have a full-time job," he said.
About 300,000 French people moved to Britain before the crisis.
(The Australian)
Here's how...
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Fallen high-flyers exploit French loophole...
THEY were denounced as traitors when they left France for lucrative jobs in London, and as irresponsible fools when crisis overtook the global economy.
Now French traders dismissed by banks in London are at the centre of a new furore after it emerged that many of them were exploiting France's generous welfare system to claim unemployment benefit of more than E75,000 (USD96,000) a year.
"I find it very shocking," Alain Vidalies, an opposition Socialist MP who raised the issue in parliament last week, said. "These people went to London to earn lots of money when the economy was booming there, and as soon as the wind turned they have come back to France and they are using a trick to ensure a very high revenue.
"It's not acceptable."
The controversy has further dented the reputation of a profession accused by President Nicolas Sarkozy of plunging the world into "catastrophe" through ill-judged speculation.
But it has also served to highlight flaws in a French social security system seen by its supporters as a safety net in times of turbulence and by its detractors as an unsustainable burden for the national economy.
Under French rules, the jobless are entitled to unemployment benefit equivalent to 57.4 per cent of their salary if they earned more than E1845.88 a month in their last job and up to 75 per cent if they earned less than that. Payments are made for 23 months and there is a ceiling of E6366.80 a month.
In most circumstances, it is impossible for workers to receive French unemployment benefit if they have been employed in another country, but they need to do only one day of work in France to be able to make a claim there. And if they have worked fewer than 28 days, that claim will be based upon their previous salary.
In other words, traders earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in London need to do a few days' work in a fast-food restaurant or a shop in Paris to ensure a revenue of E76,401.60 a year for almost two years.
Some do a shift in McDonald's. Mathieu, a trader sacked by a London bank, told the weekly magazine Le Point that he would do a day's babysitting to obtain French unemployment benefit on the basis of his British salary. "It'll be enough to cover my airplane tickets and my telephone bills," he said, adding that he was planning to look for a new job in Hong Kong.
Officials at the Pole Emploi, the French unemployment office, said that 24 claimants were receiving the maximum of E6366.80 a month after a job overseas. That figure dates from the northern autumn and Mr Vidalies said that the number had climbed steeply since then. "I think there must be several hundred, and they're getting the sort of revenue from unemployment benefit that most people cannot dream about even when they have a full-time job," he said.
About 300,000 French people moved to Britain before the crisis.
(The Australian)
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