‘I was ready to leave America’: this couple chose Southern France and early retirement over corporate life

When Rich Kagan, an American who had recently moved to France, decided to meet with his new mayor this year, the expat-immigrant community responded with concern.

“Oh my god, why are you doing this?” he remembers them asking him after the March mayoral election.

Rich Kagan, 51, had moved to Carcassonne, France from Minneapolis two years ago with his husband and now six-year-old daughter, Sonia. The new mayor, Christophe Barthès, is a member of France’s Rassemblement National, a far-right party known for historically opposing same-sex marriage and currently running on a strong anti-immigration platform.

“I wanted him to see that families like mine exist here,” Rich Kagan said.

Despite the community’s concern, in the end, Rich Kagan said he and Mayor Barthès were able to have a productive, candid conversation. It was one of many wins in the Kagans’ journey to France and their quest to set up a life here.

While the family is one of the many American households choosing to relocate to France, their story looks different from what one might expect. A gay, Jewish-American family living in a city of under 50,000 people with a far-right mayor, the Kagans have navigated early retirement, language barriers and adapting a young child to the French system over the past two years. Today, Rich Kagan shares his insights with a community of almost 7,000 subscribers on Substack.

The Connexion spoke with Rich and Yuri Kagan about their path to French living.

‘I was ready to leave America’

Long before they were married, one day as they walked home from work in San Francisco, the couple were talking about their future. Rich remembers Yuri telling him that if they got married, he wanted a child. In response, Rich said that if they had a child, he wanted to live in Europe.

“Both of us thought, well, that's crazy, neither one of those situations are going to happen,” Rich said.

However, life had other plans. Their daughter, Sonia, was born in 2020. A few years later, after a series of career-related moves, Rich Kagan’s employer, Amazon, told him they would have to relocate once again. That, combined with the political climate in the US and his long-time desire to discover life in Europe convinced him. 

“I was ready to leave America,” Rich said.

Yuri, 42, on the other hand, was less sure. Growing up in an immigrant family that had left Europe, and having lived in Italy during college, he said “at first, I really was not into it.”

“I think there's a certain immigrant mentality that we all have where you have to have a certain level of success on paper,” Yuri said.  “So for me, once we finally had that, I'm like, why would we leave that?”

However, as he started to think about the sustainability of working long term in corporate America, as well as affordability in France, his opinion gradually changed.

Thanks to the 2016 Puma law (protection universelle maladie) holders of a long-stay visa equivalent to a residence permit can access France’s universal healthcare even if they are not working. This has reportedly drawn many American retirees to the country.

In late 2023, the Kagan family visited Carcassonne in southern France, where some of Yuri’s family members live. Here, they found a property that suited them and began properly planning for a move to France.

For Rich, that meant that every night in their hot tub in Minneapolis he would scroll on his phone making vision boards, picking out furniture and doing research. Working backwards from a monthly budget of €2,000, the family was able to plan financially for their new life in France. In a small city such as Carcassonne, their savings could also stretch further.

Rich credited those evenings in the tub with how quickly and smoothly they were able to make the move – the family planned to move around November 2024 but brought everything forward and arrived in Carcassonne in May 2024.

“Everything was just kind of falling into place naturally,” he said.

‘We just stand out’

When the Kagans first arrived in their small city and dropped off their daughter at school, Rich said they were met with curiosity. From their American nationality to their choice to retire early, they were far from the typical Carcassonne resident.

Additionally, Rich said they were the only gay family in the area – that he knew of. He had heard about some lesbian couples with children but had never met them.

“As we're walking through the city, we just stand out,” he said.

Despite this, he and Yuri do not feel unsafe in their new French home. Unlike in the US, where sexuality is perhaps a more politicized phenomenon, here in France, it is a private matter left up to families, Rich said.

In 2023, 8.4% of women and 7.5% of men surveyed in France reported having had at least one relationship with a person of the same sex, according to the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm) as well as the French polling firm Ipsos. That is almost double the number reported in 2006.

More than 70,000 French same-sex couples got married between 2013 – the year it was legalized in France – and 2022, according to the Institut national d’études démographiques (Ined).

Overall, the Kagan family has been met with welcoming attitudes. Carcassonne even has an annual Pride march for the LGBT+ community.

In fact, despite the election of a far-right mayor sparking protests and consternation in the city, political differences do not triumph over basic politeness and decorum, Rich said.

“When we first showed up at school, parents were like, ‘Oh, who's that?’” he said. “But now that they know we're not going anywhere, we're invited to all the parties.”

If the Kagan couple has integrated into the French community, their daughter has gone even further. Yuri still remembers when, around eight months into living in France, he met Sonia’s teacher. It was there that he found out his daughter was one of the top students in French.

“We were like, wait, what?” Yuri said. “We've never heard her speak French at that point.”

Today, Sonia mostly speaks English at home, her parents said, but is completely fluent in French. Her parents also have the peace of mind of knowing she is safe from school shootings – a devastating occurrence in the US that has taken more than 200 lives as of 2025, according to the Washington Post.

“We're American dads raising a French girl in France,” Rich said.

‘We are our own roadblocks’

At first, Yuri said it was hard to get used to being retired in France – especially after the couple’s busy life in corporate America. However, through volunteering and other activities such as career coaching, after about six months “I found other ways to have meaning,” he said.

Rich started his Substack about a year after the couple moved. Here, he shares the couple’s journey coming to France, their experience living in Carcassonne and advice for other Americans looking to come to France. He said what started as an independent project has now grown to include thousands of subscribers.

When the Kagans first announced they were moving to France, they were met with a lot of questions. After all, they were leaving behind comfortable salaries, a house and a car in Minneapolis for a lifestyle supported by savings. However, Rich said the tide has now shifted and more Americans are asking how they did it.

In 2025 alone, the US lost around 150,000 people – the country’s first negative net migration since the Great Depression, according to the Wall Street Journal. That was also the year high-profile American actor George Clooney got French citizenship, after transitioning his family to full-time residence in France. French authorities say Americans are now the sixth most numerous recipients of first-time residency cards. 

Offering advice for Americans looking to move, Yuri said it is very important to be sure of what your budget and standard of living will be. As for Rich, he encouraged those interested to start the process early and take the plunge.

“We are our own roadblocks,” he said.