La Belle Vie

About-turn keeps la belle vie alive

Some were lured by their love of the country, especially its language, culture and cuisine. Others found a quality of life that seemed to offer an idyllic escape from the stress of the rat race.

For decades, France has been a favoured destination for foreigners in search of holiday homes. And thanks to an extraordinary about-turn by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, they have just been spared an unpleasant financial shock.

Mr Sarkozy and his government initially ignored protests and gained parliamentary approval for a proposed new tax that would have forced an estimated 360,000 people to pay 20 per cent of the calculated rental value of their French properties.

The levy was expected to pass its final hurdle this week, a vote in the upper house or senate. It would have affected people of all nationalities owning residential properties in France and maintaining them for their own use.

French people resident in the UAE, and anywhere else outside France, would also have been caught in the trap. But foreigners were the main targets amid fears that Mr Sarkozy, struggling with poor opinion ratings leading up to next year's bid for a second presidential mandate, viewed the tax as a simple way of raising revenue with negligible electoral risk.

So what prompted him to have second thoughts? It seems expatriates must thank a group of nine senators from Mr Sarkozy's ruling UMP, who met the president and ministers at the weekend.

"The president told us he had been convinced the law was a bad idea and has taken a decision to scrap it," one of the senators, Joelle Garriaud-Maylam, told the British daily newspaperThe Telegraph. "British people help rejuvenate some of our countryside and have a very positive influence, and we should be grateful."

The decision will be a huge relief for the estate agents and would-be sellers who look to outsiders to fill gaps in the domestic market.

It is likely that Mr Sarkozy was influenced in part by the impact the tax would have had on the French property sector, especially in areas popular among expats.

France is only part of the international story of second-home ownership. People of all nationalities have followed their instincts and bought holiday homes in far-off parts, from Dubai to Dordogne, Florida to the Far East, Turkey to Tunisia. And the signs are that whatever fluctuations occur in such markets, buyers will not be deterred.

"We have become more cautious for obvious economic reasons," said Charles Purdy, a director of the Smart Currency Exchange in London. "But there is still a great level of demand from people wishing to live overseas and experience a different lifestyle.

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