Parislog 81
December 2, 2006

In French class I was a bit shocked to find out that there was a legal relationship here called concubinage. A concubine to me is the property of a man and is below the wife. It was weird to hear it used in this way. I tried to find out what it was and why it existed but I didn’t understand the answer. You see here there are 3 forms of official relationship, marriage being the same, PACS, and concubinage. That was all I could get and that you filled out legal papers for all.

I know someone who is PACS’ed so have a little bit of a comfort level with that. So here it is. Marriage is the same thing all the way.

Getting PACS’ed is one level below marriage where you lose some of the rights of marriage. There are no rights to fidelity. Debts and property are for the most part handled as joint but not totally. You don’t get the partner’s pension. No rights to the partner’s unemployment. You can have rights to “titre de sejour” or possible citizenship after 3 years of living together. One partner or the other can adopt but not jointly.

Getting concubinaged gets you nothing except the sharing of health insurance and the right to “titre de sejour” or possible citizenship 5 years of living together.

I think the “titre de sejour” is a paper that gives you the right to stay and work for longer than 3 months.

As always, the morass of the legal system is something to behold.

Parislog 80
November 27, 2006
Ah the Christmas season. Now, I always heard about how Paris was the city of chocolate but I never really found this to be an overwhelming motif. There are of course chocolate shops and good ones. The grocery stores have a much better selection of dark chocolate available but it is not an overwhelming variety. Now that Christmas is here however, all that has changed. The grocery stores have an unimaginable amount of chocolate. In fact, at my favorite grocery store, there is one entire shelf unit full of new stuff plus an entire section of floor devoted to chocolate displays. That is in addition to the two full shelf units that are always there. Now I get it. Chocolate heaven or overload, I am not sure. I can’t even possibly try them all. Oh well, maybe next year.