Comment by graniter

I live and work in France and I am well versed in this type of Visa. It's a very nice arrangement, but it's still France. It's still dealing with the same administrative burdens for everything else. You don't get treated special, you just have a special deal. I've said before that if France wants to attract foreign talent what they need to do is assign someone in the French administration to help workers get established. That is the hard part about coming to work in France. If you've dealt with the DMV in the US, imagine that for everything. You can't just walk into a bank and open an account. You can make an appointment for next week...which is your first consultation. You'll need to bring a long of documentation for your second appointment the week after. You won't get your bank card for awhile, and by the way you'll have to activate it before you can use it. That might take a week. You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there. You'll need to go to the prefecture to get your residence permit. It took me 5 months to get my initial appointment and a total of 9 months to get my card, even though the "long term visa" in your passport is only good for 3 months. Some people I know waited 2.5 years for their residence card, another over a year. More? The French healthcare system is pretty good, but you won't get on it until after several trips to the Social Security office. Whoops, your entire file was sent back to you because they needed some additional piece of documentation they didn't tell you about. Make another appointment. Repeat. Repeat. Drivers license? If you are 1 of 14 states you can exhcange easily, but you only have 1 year to do that, after which you have to go to driving school. 3000 euros. Better learn French to pass the test. Better learn French to navigate all the adminstration. So Year 1 you will not be productive. You will be running around trying to stay legally. For an entire year. Ask me how I know.