Life Will Go On After Brexit

Peter Friend and Mark Barber run a luxury bed-and-breakfast in Tarn and are determined to remain champions of their adopted community whatever the outcome of Brexit negotiations

Whichever side of the Brexit debate you are on, the post-Brexit European landscape is an uncertain one.

This is especially true for expats like us who choose to venture across the Channel to make France our permanent home. We are not alone; it is estimated that 150,000 UK citizens now reside in France.

Despite the sometimes endless uncertainty, our adopted home still offers a wonderful lifestyle; great healthcare, vast open spaces, high quality road and transport infrastructure, oh, and fantastic food and wine too! We try to always remember the many positives.

We moved to the town of Mazamet, in the Tarn département, in 2009 to open our luxury B&B, La Villa de Mazamet. The year we opened our business we faced the fallout from the global financial crisis of 2008. Having weathered that storm and regained a sense of stability, we didn’t have many years of respite before the spectre of the UK potentially leaving the EU raised its head.

Like many, we woke to the news of the referendum result on 27 June 2016 and remember staring at the TV, watching the BBC news, in disbelief. What had actually happened? Why on earth was such a momentous decision allowed to be taken with such a narrow margin? What did it all mean for us living in a European country as UK citizens?

Three years on, while the same (and many other) questions remain unanswered, it is very easy to become all-consumed by what may, or may not, happen. We’ve heeded the advice of our business advisor and obtained a 10-year carte de séjour (residency permit) and exchanged our UK driving licences for their French counterpart. While neither of these actions guarantee we will be allowed to remain, they at least illustrate our commitment to France for when the day (should it come) arrives.