Category: Current Affairs

WILDLIFE charity APAS has again called for more to be done to control hunting in France after six fatal accidents since the start of the season.

The Association pour la Protection des Animaux Sauvages says that a bee keeper who was shot dead by a hunter, who mistook him for a wild boar, is just one of the terrible incidents that have occurred in France in recent weeks.

APAS is continuing to call for stricter controls on hunters, including eye tests and a limit on maximum alcohol levels, as well as a ban on hunting on Sundays.

Related: A Sunday hunting ban and eye tests for hunters, demands anti-chasse group

THERE is a great deal of anger amongst expats in France and other EU countries at a cartoon that appeared in the Daily Mail.

The Mac cartoon features a couple lying beside a swimming pool who are taking delivery of a crate of wine, with the punchline saying ‘Oh goody! Here comes our winter fuel’.

Expats are angry at the inference that people use the Winter Fuel Allowance to buy alcohol, despite many saying the payment is used to help with energy bills in homes across France and the EU.

The Daily Mail cartoon comes soon after it was announced that expats living in a number of countries in Europe, including France, will lose the fuel allowance payment based on research that claims average winter temperatures were higher then those in the UK.

Now expats are being urged to write to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to press the Daily Mail to issue an apology over the cartoon.

Graham Richards, of the Votes for Expat Brits website, said: “I have made a formal complaint to the PCC based on the fact that the Daily Mail has published a highly inaccurate, mailicious, badly and completly ill researched article and cartoon and is insulting to the vast majority of retired expats now living in other EU countries.

“It is an article of propaganda and falsifies their lifestyle as to alienate them from those still living in the UK.”

Earlier this year electricity prices in France rose by 5%, which will be followed by a similar 5% increase on 1 August 2014, while it is estimated that energy costs in the French countryside are 23% higher than in cities.

Ministers blamed ‘ridiculous’ European Court of Justice rules today as official figures revealed a near 70 per cent jump in Government winter fuel payments to ex-pats and pensioners living across Europe.

The Department of Work and Pensions paid a record £21.4 million to nearly 120,000 OAPs across the ‘European Ecomomic Area’ in 2012-2013.

Pensioners in Spain, Greece and Cyprus all pocketed the cheques, which are designed to help the elderly pay their gas and electricity bills.

Officials said the huge increase followed a judgement from the European Courts of Justice last year which allowed pensioners living across the Europe to apply if they proved “sufficient” links to Britain, such as having worked here.

Earlier this year George Osborne said: “From the autumn of 2015, we will link the winter fuel payment to a temperature test. People in hot countries will no longer get it. It is, after all, a payment for winter fuel.”

More: Expats in France look set to lose winter fuel allowance

THE winter chill is just around the corner, how do I know, the cranes, or grues, passed overhead last night.

Their call came on the breeze from the north, I could hear two groups moving along the valley, straining to see them through the darkness.

A small group passed by, but I could still only hear them, then the noise of beating wings tumbled over the roof top.

And there a dark, swiftly moving v-shaped line of the birds flashed past against the murky black clouds above.

The swooshing whirl of their wings letting me spot them on their journey south, from the cold winds of northern Europe to the restful winter sun of southern Spain and Africa.

The video above is of the cranes heading south that I took a few year ago, capturing them during daylight, it really is a magical gift of nature.

THE UK government is looking to make it easier for expats to register to vote by using an online service.

At present UK citizens living overseas wanting to vote in UK elections have to complete paper forms and send them back to their local electoral office.

But the Cabinet Office is working on a service that would allow online registration, promising a simpler and quicker service, as well as a more reliable electoral register.

The scheme is still in its early stages and the Cabinet Office is seeking expat volunteers who are visiting Britain to help fine-tune the process.

Testing days will be held in Oxford on Thursday 31 October and London on Tuesday 17 December.

The new online registration option will have no impact on the current 15 year time limit for British expats living abroad from being able to vote in general parliamentary elections and European parliamentary elections.

THE ecology minister, Philippe Martin, has definitively rejected proposed gas drilling plans that would have covered the departments of Corrèze, Dordogne and the Lot.

The Permis de Brive covered an area around the east of the Dordogne and initial plans submitted by Singapore based, Hexagon Gas, were given a favourable reading but now they have been firmly rejected.

Plans had been put forward to explore the potential of gaz de houille, or coal gas, across an area of around 1,777 square kilometres running from the south of Brive-la-Gaillarde to Sarlat, and then from the south west of Sarlat towards Villefranche-du-Périgord (disclaimer: my local village).

Opposition to drilling techniques such as fracking has been strong across France, with the Constitutional Court blocking a drilling company from exploring the potential of shale gas earlier this month.

More: Shale gas in France

THE Constitutional Council in France has thrown out a case brought by oil company, Schuepbach Energy, that looked to overturn the country’s ban on ‘fracking’, or drilling, for shale gas.

The council said that the need to protect the environment was strong, ruling that the current ban was ‘in accordance with the constitution’.

Schuepbach Energy, based in Dallas, Texas, had argued that the legislation blocking fracking had gone beyond its remit, with the current ‘precautionary principle’ requiring the technique to prove its safety.

But the French government rejected this, with a representative saying that the problems caused by fracking were known and strong enough to ensure the ban should stay in place.

Fracking, the process of pumping water, sand and chemicals into rock to release shale oil or gas, is accused of polluting the water table and even small earthquakes.

Related: Shale gas in France

THE online petition to stop the UK government’s plan to end winter fuel payment for expats in countries seen as too warm, including France, has reached more than 12,000 signatures.

Having gone beyond 10,000 signatures the government will have to reply to the petition, however for the issue to be raised in parliament the petition will have to see 100,000 back it before its close in June 2014.

But the fight is continuing to highlight how wrong the UK government’s decision to end the payment is, especially after it was found that the weather statistics it used drew in average temperatures from the French DOM-TOM territories.

These are made up of the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mayotte and French Guiana in South America, and are home to just 30 people receiving UK pensions.

If the proposals pass through parliament it will mean eligibility for winter fuel payments would end for those living in France from the winter of 2015/16.

HARRY Shindler’s flight to ensure that UK expats retain their right to vote in British parliamentary elections beyond 15 years has been dealt a blow.

The European Court of Human Rights has notified his solicitor, Oliver & Partners, that a panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber decided on 9 September not to accept Harry Shindler’s request that his case be referred to the Grand Chamber.

No reasons were given for this decision, but the consequence is that the judgement of 7 May, finding that the disenfranchisement of Harry Shindler resulting from the 15 year rule was not a violation of Art 3 Protocol 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights, is now considered final.

Harry Shindler, pictured, said he intends to continue with his campaign for the right to vote in UK national elections and referendums and intends to petition the United Nations as he also believes that his disenfranchisement is in violation of the Universal Charter of Human Rights (Art.21).

Earlier this month a representative group from across Europe, including France, led by 93-year-old Harry Shindler had a meeting with Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship.

The group came together to press the Commission to take further action to ensure EU citizens living in another EU country enjoy the right to vote in national elections of their country of origin.

Viviane Reding insisted that the practice in some Member States of depriving their citizens of their right to vote once they moved to another EU country – disenfranchisement – is effectively tantamount to punishing citizens for having exercised their right to free movement.

Website: Votes for Expat Brits

REMEMBER how we found out a few days ago that the UK government had used the French overseas’ départements in the tropics for working out average temperatures and their relation to winter fuel payments?

Well according to the Connexion newspaper there are just 30 people receiving UK pensions in the DOM-TOM territories made up of the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mayotte and French Guiana in South America.

This compares to just under 60,000 British state pensioners in mainland France.

Not surprisingly drawing in the mild winter weather of these territories completely skews the average temperature of mainland France itself.

The UK government had said that a ‘temperature test’ would be used to decide eligibility for winter fuel payments and that the changes would come into force from the winter of 2015/16.

With the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, saying that people living in warmer countries should not receive the payment, ‘it is, after all, a payment for winter fuel’ he said earlier this year.

The temperature rule meant that while people living in the Alps or Pyrenees would no longer receive the payment, expats living in Sicily retained their entitlement.

And it also came to light that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had estimated that by cutting the entitlement to winter fuel payments for some pensioners, it would save £30 million a year.

A Winter Fuel Payment e-petition has been produced to seek support and oppose the UK government’s proposals, with nearly 5,000 people currently signed up.