MAAF blinks first

Today will go down in history as a triumph for the good guys on the right side of the Channel. For ever more, I will give myself a day off work every February 23rd to mark MAAF Victory Day. Today, the evil overlords of French insurance were forced into a humiliating climbdown in the face of the British stiff upper lip. I can almost hear the strains of 'Land of Hope and Glory'.

Everyone who lives in France has got one or several administrative bogeymen. I have come to the conclusion that if French society has is a great leveller, or great unifier (and that's debatable) - then this is it. MAAF were far from my only French bogeyman, but they were the last. Now there are no more. I feel strangely bereft.

Rewind to last August, and MAAF's refusal to believe that I was leaving France, and therefore to cancel our overpriced family health insurance policy (I've found the NHS to be better value) prompted a stand off, with both sides refusing to back down. I wrote them a furious letter. What I actually wrote, after several final demands for a mounting bill of several hundred euros, and threats to repossess my non-existent French 'biens', was less interesting. But in case any reader finds themselves in a similar situation one day, here it is (and there's no need to correct my French, thank you, I am aware):

'En application des dispositions de l'article L. 113-16 du Code des Assurances, je vous informe que je souhaite résilier mon contrat d'assurance MAAF santé Biorythme.
Ceci est en raison de mon deménagement en Angleterre, qui a eu lieu en aout 2006. Je vous avez déjà addressé une lettre AR (daté 14 aout 2006) en demandant une résiliation de contrat.
C’etait donc avec étonnement que j’ai reçu une reclamation de paiement (voir pièce joint).
Ce veut dire que vous avez ignoré ma précedent demande de resiliation, et le fait que je n’utilise plus de mon contrat MAAF santé (il n’a pas de demande de remboursement depuis juillet 2006). En une lettre daté 18 aout 2006, vous m’avez reclamé un ‘justificatif’. En aout 2006, je ne pouvais pas vous fournir d’un ‘photocopie d’un document justifiant de votre départ à l’etranger’ , parce qu’un tel document n’existait pas. Ce qui est tout a fait logique – j’etais encore en France, et je partais pour chercher un emploi et j’avais pas d’adresse fixe en Angleterre.
Je vous joins un justificatif qui date d’octobre 2006. C’est une demande de numéro de securité sociale en Angleterre.
Je vous demande de résilier mon contrat a l’effet de ma precedent demande, et d’arreter de me harceler. Je vous informe que je n’ai aucun intention de payer les sommes reclamés, car je considère votre refus de resilier mon contract en aout 2006 abusif.
Veuillez agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées.'

And so today, another letter from MAAF plopped limply onto the mat. I tore it open with gladiatorial zeal. I had no fear. What could they do to me? Happy is he who has no 'biens' to impound or liquidate, and no dosh left in his French bank account.

And I found, a Certificat de Radiation, stating quite simply that it was all over between us. It was an anticlimax. No mention was made of our sparring, there was no trace of bitterness. But I stilll punched the air, and whooped.

What am I going to do without my French bogeymen? Crédit Lyonnais, the Mairie de Levallois, the satellite installation people and guichet gorgons too numerous to mention, I see you fading away into the mists of time.

Mes amis, without you, there is something lacking.

Le retour...

I apologise for going a little awol. The reason was that I forgot my blogger password (such disarming honesty, and such incompetence! Does this girl deserve a reading public, however miniscule?) and started applying madly for jobs.

Life is lean without allocations familiales. Hubski brings home the Daily Mail from work (I wouldn't read it otherwise, honest), and I can't quite believe the rants it publishes, to the effect that we Brits are a nation of benefit scroungers. It really does make sense to find a job, rather than shoot yourself in the foot in order to claim incapacity benefit (less than £400 a month! I wouldn't limp out of bed for that!).

I hope one day to write the Brit in France novel to end all Brit in France novels (what a blessing and an honour that would be, to dam the unstoppable flow of septic tank anecdotes and locals called irritatingly by their first names). But for the time being, that will have to wait until after the working day is done and I've put the kids to bed. In other words, it will be the first Brit in France novel written while the author was asleep (a useful USP that, I don't think anyone's done that one yet).

The need to put food on the table equals the need to sell my soul to the devil, or to anyone who can outbid him. And so I have applied for a job as a guff spouter (I believe the official title is 'corporate writer'). Believe me, noone can spout more convincing guff than I, especially when 30K is waved before my nose. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home yummy mummy (even though I despise yoga and wearing anything other than a porridge-encrusted fleece). But Hubski is missing the kids on his long commutes, and we are not liking his low salary, so as soon as I find a better-paid job, he will give up his, and we'll have a role reversal for a while.

It wasn't as we planned it, but 'c'est la vie'. Vat's loife, mate. I'll keep you posted, however irregularly. And as I am not usually known as Francesca Tereskhova, I might even be bold enough to fill you in with my insights on UK office life, and how David Brent is doing these days. That's if I get the job.

PS. Re the 'Tescos value sausages' comment in the previous post. An eerie coincidence, but these are the very brand of sausages that hubski has adopted on British soil. There must be some link with dodgy Russian sausage. I dare not speculate. Eastern European men do seem to have a thing about gross meat products. I had a Croatian boyfriend at University who would bring a revolting meat paste that you squeezed from a tube (which I christened 'death toothpaste') back from Zagreb every term. The memory of the smell brings bile to my throat. Proust was right about those madeleines.

But I'm still glad I moved back to the land of fairy cakes.