What's changed — and what it means for you.

A strike-heavy autumn is brewing — the day to circle is 29 September

The rentrée has brought the usual wave of social action, this year sharpened by the fight over the 2027 budget. The big cross-union day is 29 September, when civil servants, teachers and hospital staff are expected to down tools — so count on some school closures and patchy public services that day. Energy workers at EDF, Enedis and RTE are running a rolling protest with a national demo on 15 September, and firefighters have called action from 8 September right through to the 20 October budget vote.

None of this is a reason to cancel your autumn. If you're travelling, check with SNCF or your airline the day before rather than assuming; if you've school-age children, watch for the mairie's notice about the 29th; and if you need a préfecture or CPAM appointment, try not to book it on a strike day. Annoying, rarely disastrous.

Gas goes up again on 1 October — the second rise in two months

The regulated prix repère for gas rises 6.3% on 1 October, hard on the heels of September's 5.6%. This one is purely the wholesale supply cost — the network charges haven't moved — and it works out at roughly €5.28 a month more for a typical household on an index-linked tariff, just as the heating goes on. The upside: around 40% of households on fixed-price deals won't feel it at all.

If you're on the tarif réglementé or a price-indexed offer, this is a fair moment to compare — but the more useful two minutes is spent checking your monthly mensualité estimate now. Nudging it up a tenner a month is far less painful than a €200 régularisation landing next spring.

ETIAS slips again — still no start date, and it may not land until 2027

The EU's new ETIAS travel authorisation — the €20 online permit non-EU visitors will eventually need for short stays — has quietly slid down the calendar once more. Brussels now talks about a launch late in 2026 at the earliest, and several trackers reckon it won't really be live until 2027. It only begins a few months after the EES border system has bedded in, with a grace period on top. The separate EES entry/exit checks are already fully live.

If you live here, none of this touches you — your carte de séjour or long-stay visa keeps you out of both systems; it only ever mattered for visitors. And because there is still no real ETIAS site, anything telling you to "apply and pay" today is a scam. Worth passing on to friends planning a visit.

The drought is hanging on into autumn — and the forecast may be about to flip

After one of the driest summers on record, water restrictions are still in force across much of the country as September wears on, with the ground now too hard to soak up what little rain falls. Forecasters are flagging the opposite risk for the weeks ahead: a parched landscape plus autumn storms is the classic recipe for flash flooding, especially across the south.

Keep half an eye on vigieau.gouv.fr for your commune's water rules — they don't lift overnight — and if you're anywhere near the Med or a known flood zone, sign up for your mairie's alert system and learn where the Météo-France vigilance warnings live. Two minutes now beats a flooded garage later.

New guide: assurance vie — the French wrapper everyone recommends, explained straight

If you've opened a bank account here, someone has almost certainly already suggested an assurance vie. It isn't life insurance in the British sense — it's an investment wrapper, and it's the default way the French hold long-term savings. Two things earn it the attention: gains aren't taxed while they stay inside the contract, and what's in it passes to whoever you name largely outside the usual French succession rules. The new guide covers how it actually works, what the charges quietly cost you, and where the small print bites.

Powerful, but not the loophole it's sometimes sold as. The tax treatment is genuinely useful; a contract stuffed with annual fees and a thin fund range will eat the benefit and then some — so which contract you pick matters rather more than the fact you've got one.

A tinder-dry summer has put most of France under water restrictions — check before you fill the pool

By late August, 93 départements were under some level of water restriction and 75 of them had zones at the top crise level — among the widest bans in years. Where crisis rules apply, watering the garden, washing the car (even at a car wash) and filling a private pool are all forbidden, with fines up to €1,500. The rules are set commune by commune and shift week to week as rivers rise and fall.

Don't judge it by the sky — a ban can apply on a grey, drizzly day. Two minutes on vigieau.gouv.fr tells you your own commune's level and exactly what's allowed today. And if you're on a private well or spring rather than mains water, the restrictions usually still apply to you.

Gas goes up 5.6% this month, on top of a summer rise in electricity

The regulated prix repère for gas rose 5.6% on 1 September, pushed up by higher wholesale prices and low European storage — roughly the heating rate moving from 12.6 to 13.5 c/kWh, just as the season turns. It follows a 2.5% rise in the regulated electricity tariff on 1 August. Neither is a dramatic shock on its own, but both land together on the autumn bills.

If you're on a fixed or market deal rather than the regulated tariff, this doesn't automatically hit you — but it's a sensible moment to compare offers, and to check your monthly mensualité estimate now rather than face a nasty régularisation next spring.

Your at-source tax rate quietly changes this month

From 1 September, the prélèvement à la source rate applied to a French salary or pension updates automatically, recalculated from the income you declared this spring. Earn more than last year and the rate ticks up; less, and it falls. Nobody writes to tell you — it simply appears on the payslip or pension statement.

Worth a glance at the new rate in your space on impots.gouv.fr. If your circumstances have changed since you declared — stopped working, retired, a real drop in income — you can ask for the rate to be adjusted now rather than waiting a whole year to claw it back.

The first Brexit residence cards are coming up for renewal

The 5-year Withdrawal Agreement cards (WARP) issued to Britons back in 2021 start reaching their expiry through 2026. You renew into a 10-year permanent card (séjour permanent – Article 50 TUE); it's free, and there's no language test and no civics exam — this is a Brexit card, not an ordinary titre de séjour. The formal application window is the two months before the date on your card.

Check the expiry date on your card now. Préfectures get busy and processing can drag, so most people are advised to start the online renewal three to six months ahead. Don't let it lapse — a valid card is also exactly what keeps you out of the new EES border checks.

The €100 fuel payment for high-mileage drivers closes on 31 August

The indemnité carburant — a one-off €100 for grands rouleurs, people on modest incomes who drive long distances to work — has had its application window extended to 31 August 2026. You claim it through your space on impots.gouv.fr, and it's both means-tested and distance-tested, not a universal handout.

Narrow, but real: if you or someone in the household commutes a long way by car on a modest wage and hasn't claimed, it's a couple of minutes' work for €100 — and the window shuts in days, not weeks.

Taxe foncière notices are landing — the clock to 20 October starts now

If you own your home, the annual taxe foncière notice is online from 27 August and posted between late August and 21 September. Payment is due by 20 October if you pay online, or 15 October by any other method. It's the owner's property tax, separate from the taxe d'habitation that most main homes no longer pay.

Two glances when it arrives: whether the figure's roughly in line with last year (rates are set locally and can jump), and which deadline is yours — paying online buys you the extra five days to 20 October.

A tax balance to settle? It comes out from 25 September

If your avis d'impôt this summer showed a solde still to pay — because the monthly prélèvement à la source didn't quite cover the year — the tax office collects it automatically. Sums up to €300 are taken in one go around 25 September; anything larger is spread over four monthly instalments from September to December.

Nothing to do but make sure the account it points at can cover it. If the figure looks wrong, sort it now rather than after it's left your account — corrections are far easier before the debit than after.

EU border checks: EES is fully live, and biometric checks step up this autumn

The EU's Entry/Exit System has been in full operation since 10 April 2026, replacing the passport stamp with a digital record of entries and exits. The temporary leeway that let some crossings skip fingerprints and photos ends after September, so from the autumn every non-EU visitor should expect the full biometric check. The separate ETIAS travel authorisation is still only pencilled in to start rolling out later in 2026 — no firm date, and a grace period once it does.

If you live here, none of it is your problem: your carte de séjour is your entry authorisation and residents are exempt from both. It only bites for non-resident visitors — UK family coming to stay, or you if you still cross on a British passport without a French card. And while there's still no live ETIAS site, anything demanding you "apply and pay" now is a scam.

A new healthcare contribution for non-working residents — but probably not for you

A contribution for residents who use French healthcare without working or drawing a pension (roughly €300–600 a year) has been voted, but the decree that sets the rate and switches it on still hasn't appeared — so nothing is being charged yet.

If you're on an S1 — most UK state pensioners are — you're exempt, as are workers and pensioners generally. In practice this mostly catches early-retirees and non-Europeans on visitor visas without an S1, not the typical British pensioner.

Residency and citizenship fees just went up — some of them a lot

The stamp duty on a first carte de séjour rose from €225 to €350, and validating a long-stay visa on arrival went from €200 to €300. The headline shock is citizenship: the naturalisation fee leapt from €55 to €255. The rate that applies is the one in force when your complete file is submitted, not when you collect the card — so a dossier filed before 1 May kept the old price.

Renewals barely moved — around €250, up from €225, because the flat timbre doubled from €25 to €50. So the real sting is for first-timers and anyone finally going for the passport, not people simply renewing what they've already got.

Swapping a foreign licence now costs €40

Exchanging a non-EU driving licence for a French one carries a €40 stamp duty for the first time, done through the ANTS portal. It was free until now.

Most Brits don't need to swap at all — a pre-2021 UK licence is fine to keep driving on. This only matters if you're actually going through the exchange (points, expiry, a lost card).

The daily hospital charge nudged up to €23

The forfait journalier — the flat daily rate you pay for a hospital stay, on top of what the Sécu covers — rose to €23 a day.

This is exactly what a decent mutuelle is for. If yours covers the forfait journalier, you'll never feel this. Worth a two-minute check of your contract.

The carte Vitale is now an app

A digital carte Vitale is rolling out — your health card on your phone, usable at the pharmacy and the doctor's.

Small thing, useful thing. One less bit of plastic to leave at home on the day you actually need it. For Brits the good news is your French titre de séjour works to activate it — alongside a French ID card or passport. In practice the app can still be fussy for some other-EU passport holders, so if activation stalls, it's the app catching up, not you doing anything wrong.