Survey asks Britons in France: do you know your Brexit rights?

Britons who were living in France and other parts of the EU before Brexit are being invited to take part in a survey aimed at finding out how much people know about the rights that were agreed for them in the Withdrawal Agreement (WA).

The WA is a key treaty which - along with a French decree putting it into action - provides the ongoing legal basis for many protections for Britons in France. 

Almost four years since the UK fully left the EU, non-profit advocacy group British in Europe (BiE) is running the survey as part of its ongoing work monitoring respect of the WA..

The survey can be found at this link. A member of our team completed it this morning and it takes about ten minutes and operates by multiple-choice. Giving personal details is optional.

It asks about issues such as:

• Whether you applied for a residency card related to your rights

• If so, if this application was successful

• If you have a ‘temporary’ (five-year) card do you know how to ‘upgrade’ it to a permanent residency card?

• Do you know how long you can be absent from your country of residence without losing your rights?

• What areas of life, whether work, social security, housing etc do you think fall under the WA?

• Do you know your rights on bringing over close family?

• Are you aware of your rights under the future European Entry/Exit System (EES) digital borders scheme?

• Have you heard of the ‘EU Charter of Fundamental Rights’?

The original aim of the UK-EU negotiations that led to the WA was to allow Britons who had moved abroad as EU citizens to continue their lives as before, and while it did provide protections, campaigners have argued it fell short of this in several respects.

Read more: British retiree in France to take Brexit case to human rights court 

BiE states: “It’s vital that we also understand how much you, as UK WA beneficiaries, know about your rights, as well as where to go or who to turn to if you feel your rights are being breached.”

The survey is part of the group’s wider ‘ICE’ (‘Inform, Connect, Empower’) programme, for which it has received EU funding.

As part of this, its leaders have this summer been ‘mentoring’ groups of new volunteers across several EU member states, including France. 

Two of its leaders in France, Kathryn Dobson and Kalba Meadows, have now stepped down after seven years of voluntary work. They represented Britons at meetings with the French authorities and with British MPs, ran meetings for British nationals and gave information via social media and websites, as well as helping BiE raise funds.

Reports in 2022 that BiE was closing down turned out to be premature after it obtained a year of funding from a UK charity to work on the issue of ‘votes for life’ for Britons abroad last year, before, now, obtaining the new EU funds.