Oh, and if you should happen to know anything about Maddie, do help her and her parents.

- or How I Got Revenge on the French State After 4 Years of Economic Government Vandalism

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It could seem that no matter what you do, after a sufficient amount of time in France, you end up becoming furious about always losing out to these weasels. That is, unless you become a zombie like the many Frenchmen who have resigned to the belief that nothing can be changed and that it's useless to make any efforts for anything. Did you notice these Frenchmen when in France? They are everywhere. Just like it used to be on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

I've found my cure: Treat the System like it treats you. It sometimes works. As opposed to the System, don't do anything illegal; just exploit errors and loopholes in your own favour whenever you see your chance. If in doubt about an official text, always interpret it in your favour. Avoid to descending to the low level of cheating other individuals as the French do. Just exploit the System. When you don't become ashamed of acting like that any more, it's time to ask for Frog nationality and accord yourself the honour of having become a member of the Frog Legion. You have become a proud example of successful integration in a foreign country.

The Starter, sorry, l'entrée: Refund of Tax I Never Paid

Impatient readers can skip to the main course, sorry, main story here.

I started at the beginner's level when on the 6th of March 2006 I cashed a cheque from the taxman for 958 € that they had sent me as a refund for taxe d'habitation (dwelling tax) 2005 because it wasn't due in my case. Well, why shouldn't I cash a cheque for a tax refund, you might say? It would be stupid not to. Because in this case, it was a refund for a tax I hadn't paid in the first place, so the refund wasn't actually due. But as I was a bit short of cash, I found it was a welcome credit and therefore cashed the cheque. It's not illegal to cash a cheque issued in your name.

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When they print out letters granting tax relief, they are printed on letter paper with a cheque attached, and if a refund is not due, someone is supposed to tear off the cheque before posting the letter. The trouble with such manual work in France is that it's not terribly popular. If a cheque-tearing exercise is due at 11:45, when mental lunch preparations usually begin, a cheque may well slip through. At 11:45, lunch is the absolute priority in France. Never get sick at noon.

To my surprise, they discovered their mistake already 4 months later, on the 5th of July. In the cosmos of French administration, 4 months is like a minute for us. "Dear Sir, After a total tax relief decided by the Salon de Provence Tax Office for dwelling tax R089/2005 for the amount of 958 €, a letter-cheque on the Treasury number 00421936 for 958 € was established and sent to you in error. Nevertheless, it appears that you have cashed this letter-cheque on the 06/03/2006 although no refund could be granted you, since you had not made any payment. I therefore ask you to refund me the 958 € wrongly cashed."

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It did sound reasonable enough that they wanted their money back. However, at that time, pouring money into my finances was quite similar to pouring water on dry sand, so I had to explain the tax office that I would have a slight practical problem refunding it all straight away. They accepted my generous proposition of paying 40 € a month without interest. It was still a good credit, despite having to pay it off slowly. I kept the agreement for 3 months. Then, the county stopped paying our income support without warning or explanation. Cutting it that way is illegal, but the law doesn't matter when it's a public administration that doesn't respect it. I then stopped refunding the tax office as a result of that attack on our finances. The trouble with the county is that instead of just spending our days in the sofa, we're trying to increase our income by working and taking education. Although we were still not really earning anything, the fact that we were trying was so severe for the county that they had to take a drastic measure to show that you can't get away with just anything, and particularly not believing that you can improve your situation while on public money. It is a socialist county in which the socialist county president never stops talking about how important social security is and how much he's doing about it. They used to pay out about 80 million euros a year in income support to people who had not signed any engagement to find work at all. The county was supposed to oblige 'clients' to sign such an engagement or withdraw the money.

So what about the now 838 € I still owed the tax office? I refunded it all in July 2007 in one go. Read on to see how.

How 25.120 € Became 25,120 €

Now we're getting some meat on the bones. 5-digit amounts instead of pocket money.

Look carefully at this cheque. Apart from the blurred fields to prevent you from finding out who wrote it, did you notice anything unusual? 3 decimals on a cheque? It's arithmetically correct, but it can have undesired side effects (note that in Continental Europe, the decimal point is the comma and the thousands separator the point, so the 25,120 written on the cheque means 25.120 in the UK and the US). When I checked my account online, I noticed an amount of 25,120 € had been credited on the 3rd of July 2007. Not 25.12 €. 25120.00 €!

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It was obviously an error, and it was easy to see how the 3 decimals had been misread. Who can blame the employee who does nothing but treats cheques all day long? Mistakes happen. He or she is forgiven.

So, what would you do? You owe 10,000 € in rent and you are close to eviction because of that. You owe 5,300 € in receivership to refund over 9 years with 51 € a month, and the receiver is raking in on that by collecting annual fees of 500 € for the next 9 years - a government-instated racket. You owe the tax office 838 € for a tax they shouldn't have refunded. You have a list of other, smaller debts.

A quick legal research revealed that although people had been condemned to refund such amounts in cases where they had kept them, the action of having disposed of the available balance on their accounts was not illegal, regardless of the fact that the money was only there by error. As we all know, justice is firm, but it can take many years to get a final decision. When you want something from justice, all you can do is wait. If the government rail company SNCF had paid me the due contract amount back in June 2003 instead of breaching the contract to save 15,180 €, and if the law had not obliged me to pay 10,000 € in taxes and social charges in the deficitary year 2004, I would have been almost debt free. At the time of writing, July 2007, I'm still waiting for the appeal court in Douai to judge the case. Including damages and interest, they owe me more than 30,000 € now.

As a self-employed person in France, you have the privilege of having a minimum of 1,300 € a year to pay in taxes and social charges, regardless if you earn anything. As unemployed, you'll be fine, as a social case on minimum support, you'll be fine, as an employed person earning very little, you'll be fine, but the self-employed trying to build up a small business is pumped for money he or she doesn't have - and pursued with the utmost severity if (s)he doesn't pay. If you have been so careless as decreasing your income drastically, you'll be taxed on the higher, non-existing income for the 2 following years to be sure that every cent is sucked out of your pockets.

So, to sum up, a government company owes me a large sum of money.
The government is responsible for one law after another that punishes self-employment.
My bank, the government-owned postal bank La Banque Postale, are the ones who will get a hole of 25,120 € in their accounts if I don't leave the money on my account.

Did you notice the word "government" in each sentence?

I took a quick decision and paid back the debts through home banking and also stashed aside a slush fund elsewhere to cater for hard times ahead.

When on the 10th of July the Banque Postale found out what had happened, there was only 2,000 € left on the account, and they quite predictably grabbed them very quickly.

I received this quite dry letter shortly after. If they have any sense of humour, they certainly don't reveal it here. As the bad losers they are, violating all the rules in the account conditions they have written themselves, they cancelled my home banking access, collected my credit card when it was used at a cash dispenser to check the account balance, and cancelled the agreed overdraft of 300 €. These childish actions are obviously not going to help them getting their money back. Fortunately, I have accounts and cards enough in France and elsewhere to avoid that their behaviour causes any more than just a nuisance. The money will just move a bit differently. Having spent most of the 25,120 € on my account is not a violation of the account conditions or any law. The Civil Code obliges me to refund it, because it was not due, but that's all. There are many things in the French Civil Code that make very good sense. However, the Civil Code doesn't say how quickly I must refund it.

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What clearly annoys the bank is that they cannot accuse me of having violated the account conditions, and that they know very well that it was their fault the money was on my account. Hence their desperate behaviour.

I have written to them to let them know that I agree that they should have their money back but that unfortunately, I can't put a date on it, since I'm insolvent and don't have any real estate or savings, cars or other possessions of any value of significance, explaining them that even if they go to court, win (unless I appeal) and send a bailiff, he won't find anything worth 25,000 €. What I need is to drag it out until I get my money from the cheating SNCF. Dragging it out is not difficult in the French court system.

So, you may ask, how could I act so unfairly against such a nice bank? Well, they have been chopping away at the maximum agreed overdraft as they have seen fit as my financial worries grew. "That is our right according to the conditions", they said each time. They are right. When I went in receivership in April 2005 because I couldn't pay 10,000 € in tax of a deficit of 11,000 €, they suspended the overdraft facility completely overnight, despite a court order to keep the account and its facilities intact. Only when I got a specific court order to keep the overdraft facility in place did they reinstate it. They rake in fees of 8 € in penalty every time a direct debit is rejected. Many times in the past, when I have asked something, they have preferred the sulky French way of discussion instead of just making things work, whether they were technically right or wrong. So, no, I have not even a hint of bad conscience of having taken a 'forced loan' from them. It was my right according to account conditions to dispose of the available balance. They stick to the rules when it's in their advantage; I do the same.

On the 23th of July, they wrote to me that they had issued an interdiction bancaire. It is a particular and severe French punishment for cheque abuse that bans the victim from writing cheques for 5 years. Because the bank had emptied my account when they discovered the incident, a couple of minor cheques issued before had been bounced. But the bank is legally obliged to contact me and give me a few days to credit money for the cheques before they bounce them and issue this draconian interdiction bancaire. They didn't make any effort to contact me but deliberately abused the interdiction bancaire to intimidate me. They have acted completely illegally. Rules only apply to their clients. Still, the law gives me the opportunity to credit money and get the ban lifted. Money was deposited on the 27th of July, so they will have to lift the ban straight away. The alternative would have been taking them to court, but as we know, court action can be a saga.

Now I wonder what their next illegal action will be. I will be taking legal action against them for this serious abuse. The law, quite extraordinarily, gives banks the role of party, judge and police at the same time. That is highly dangerous and particularly when it's about money. Of course, a real judge will put them in place, but until that happens, quite a lot of damage can be done.

The Banque Postale, by so seriously abusing the interdiction bancaire, while insisting on rules and regulations to charge customers fee after fee, has exposed their sheer hypocrisy. In fact, they have one rulebook for the customers and another for themselves, the latter simply being called "money". But we are not really surprised, are we?

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