France can help disabled expats

DISABLED expats who have had their benefits cut by the UK may be eligible for help in France, Connexion has found.

In principle people moving between EU states should be able to support themselves, however, this does not prevent them from claiming some benefits, a French official has said.

French benefits have different eligibility criteria from British ones and amounts vary according to your income.

Britain stopped paying benefits like disability living allowance or attendance allowance to expats in 1992.

In 2007 the European Court of Justice ruled these benefits were exportable and people should be able to claim them while living in France. The UK, however, is resisting reinstating payments to expats already abroad.

Several French alternatives are available to qualifying EU citizens who can show stable French residence for at least six months, said Main Gon, of the Dordogne's Maison Départementale des Personnes Handicapés (MDPH). They do not have to have worked in France.

Your local MDPH can help you work out entitlements. To find it visit www.travail-solidarite.gouv.fr/espaces/handicap then click the Infos Pratiques link on the left. It is mainly the caisse d'allocations familiales (caf) or the conseil général (departmental council) which pays them.

You may have to prove a minimum income (€460.09/ month for a single person under 65 or €677.13 for older people) and have health insurance as part of the stable residence criteria.

Disability percentages, assessed by medical examination, are used to work out some entitlements. 100% means a "vegetative" state, 50% is "significant problems causing notable difficulties in social life" while 80% is "serious difficulties, major hindrance to daily life and harm to autonomy."

The UK says it will not change its policy that anyone claiming Disability Living Allowance from France should have spent 26 weeks out of the last 52 in the UK, Department of Work and Pensions Minister Jonathan Shaw has insisted.

This is despite the European Commission starting infringement proceedings against the UK, saying this policy breaks EU social security rules.

It blocks expats who had the benefit
wrongly withdrawn from reclaiming it.

British MP Roger Gale is urging the Commission to resolve the issue “as a matter of utmost urgency.”

He said: “UK citizens resident in France are now literally dying without receiving the DLA to which the ECJ has determined that they are entitled. These people are sick and mainly elderly. They simply cannot wait any longer for the outcome of a protracted legal wrangle.”

Four test cases of expats appealing refusal are due to be heard in the UK on March 4.