The French and their god-forsaken paperwork. If there were a form to fill in for wiping your arse, you can bet your bottom dollar (no pun intended) it was masterminded by a gastro-obsessed member of the Assemblée Nationale.
This said, there are parts of the welfare system that put the penny-pinching bigwigs of Whitehall to shame. Take, for example, the controversial subject of the assedic; welfare allowance available to anyone who’s ever worked a day in their life. In my case, 10 months in a private company entitles me to 57.5 % of my salary. Doing the maths on his pocket calculator, my advisor at the Pole Emploi (Job Centre) informs me this equates to over €900 per month, or €30 per day. I’m sorry? Did I hear this correctly? You’re going to pay me something similar to minimum wage, for sitting on my…erm…I mean scouring job ads? I wait to hear the catch.
The steps to the interview at the Pole Emploi are, however, long and arduous. Like most things, you’re required to prepare a dossier; a collection of documents from passport, to your death certificate (pre-signed by local town council, of course). After registering for an appointment online, you spend the days before the interview tracking down payslips, bank statements, social security papers and the like, just so that when you show up they won’t send you packing like the blood-sucking ‘rosbif’ parasite you really are.
My path to welfare heaven was obviously not going to be smooth. Starting as I meant to go on, I missed my first jobseeker’s appointment completely by accident, failing to read either the attached email confirmation or the reminder the following day. The ten-day wait until the next available slot ought to have given me time to organise my dossier. However, it was in the interim that I realised my first major faux pas of my year in France: failure to matriculate at the social security office.
Who knew something so trivial could have such ramifications? As far as I knew, when I arrived in Paris in 2008, pompously wielding the social security number I’d acquired as an English assistant three years prior, it was game, set and match to JPS on the paperwork front. I was wrong.
Apparently, this 13-digit number did little in terms of proving my existence in the French welfare state. I thank God that over the last year I haven’t required any Tamiflu, else I might not be hear to blog the tale. While private companies provide health insurance that covers a percentage of costs, it is only in conjunction with the Assurance Maladie that you’re truly safe.
It was an interesting conundrum. How did I go about declaring my worth to the French welfare system, now that I was unemployed? Sure, had I popped down social security while I was bringing in the pennies, they would have welcomed me with open arms. But now it was a different kettle of fish.
The golden snitch of paperwork is the Carte Vitale; sort of equivalent of your National Insurance number card and, as I should have guessed from the name, actually quite important. In fact, it’s so difficult to come by, I still don’t even have one yet.
Traipsing my way to the nearest social security office, situated off the Place des Fêtes in the 19th, I arrive to find a hefty queue and a Mr Bean-style waiting room, where people jostle in line to get served. 422 is eventually called, and I present my conundrum to the Senegalese social worker (is this what they are called?) who informs me, after a thorough 30-second name-and number check, that I don’t exist. Not wanting to argue the toss of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am), I merely agree to fill in the forms she’s stuffed into my hands and slink away to examine the damage.
What the hell? She’s given me forms that require an employer’s signature. What part of unemployed did she not understand? Come to think of it, did I even tell her I was without work? Better take another ticket.
442 sends me to someone much more helpful. This lady, older, and French (we’ll get to the subject of xenophobia in a moment), is eager to hear my complaints. It’s almost as if she cares about my plight, and for a moment, I relax into my chair as I might do when grandma offers to make me my favourite soup. But my world is brought crashing down just as quickly as I’ve created it. Thrusting my ticket back in my hand, she informs me that I must wait in a new line, until her colleague can see me. ‘Can’t you do it?’ my eyes seem to say. But she’s already welcoming the next elderly gentleman to the table.
The new queue takes ten times longer. I wait for an hour on plastic chairs wedged in between a beautiful but tenacious-looking blonde and an elderly man, who’s she’s humouring on his outrageously racist viewpoints. Apparently, he says, the only way to get ahead of the queue is to tie a headscarf around your head. Either that, or move to an all-catholic arrondissement where the African immigrant mafia can’t screw you over. Thankfully the dulcet tones of Thom Yorke on mp3 are enough to drown out the old man’s drivel.
Eventually left alone with the blonde, I try to strike up a conversation but without success. It seems she can tolerate racist old farts, but horny young Englishmen are a step too far.
Finally reaching grandma’s colleague, I’m saddened to discover that, as a resident of the 20th district, I am definitely in the wrong place. Furthermore, as my dossier lacks my first payslip, I will be unable to proceed with matriculation. My two-hour wait has been in vain, and I must do the whole thing again the next day, albeit without blonde tough nut for company. I’m more than a little peeved.
