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Madeline Aveson-Gruber

How to speak French acronyms and initialisms fluently

It can be difficult enough to learn French and then you realise that there is whole addition to the language to learn which is the minefield of French acronyms and initialisms.

I have often seen people complaining on on-line forums about people using acronyms and begging to know what they mean and to be honest I didn’t realise until I started writing this article just what common usage they are in everyday French language.

 

Rather than just listing them in alphabetical order I thought it might be easier to group them together under different categories starting with:


Health

 

One of the most widely known and used acronyms is CPAM (Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie) or as the French more commonly call it “La Secu”; This is general health system that deals with giving you your carte vitale (health card) and reimbursing you for all health related payments. You will often see people telling you to go to your nearest CPAM office in order to sort out any health questions.

PUMA (protection universelle maladie ) guarantees everybody an access into the state health system. In order to apply you must be a legal resident in France

If you are planning to run your own business you will enter the health care system for the self-employed called the SSI (Security Social des Indépendants) this was formerly known as the RSI and many people still refer to it as such just to complicate matters further!

Hopefully you will never need them but just in case you do the SAMU (Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente) are the ambulance teams that come out when you dial 15 and the SMUR (Service Mobile d’Urgence et de Réanimation) are the mobile emergency and reanimation team that can be called out by the SAMU if they deem it necessary.

 

Work

 

If you are going to be employed in France one of the first things to ask is if it is a CDI or a CDD contract. A CDI (contract durée indéterminée) is an open ended contract with no end date. Most French people dream of obtaining a CDI as this opens the door to an easier life in terms of getting loans, buying or renting or anything else which requires proof of regular income.

A CDD (contrat durée déterminée) is a date to date contract and can be seasonal, a replacement contract or due to needing more staff during a certain period.

The SMIC (Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel de Croissance) means the minimum wage in France and is recalculated very year.

If you are giving or receiving quotes or invoices you will need to know if the price is HT (hors taxe)  which is without VAT or TTC ( toute taxe comprise) inclusive of VAT. VAT in French is TVA (taxe sur le valeur rajoutée).

If you set up your own business as self-employed it will most commonly be as an ME or AE (micro-entrepreneur or auto-entrepreneur) which is the less complicated way to set up an EI (entreprise individual) individual company. You will be paying social charges to URSSAF (Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales) which comes under the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Social Affairs, their role includes collection of funds, control of contributions and dealing with litigation.


When you create a company in France, INSEE (institut national de la statistique et des enquêtes économiques) the national institute for statistics and economic studies, assigns you a 9 digit SIREN number (Système d'identification du répertoire des entreprises), the Business Directory Identification System, that identifies the company and remains the same throughout the life of the company and cannot be changed.

You will also get a SIRET number (Système d’Identification du Répertoire des Établissements),Directory of Establishments Identification System, which corresponds to the 9 digits of the SIREN number followed by 5 additional digits called NIC (Numéro Interne de Classement) or Internal Number of Classification.

The SIREN number identifies the company.

The SIRET number identifies each establishment of a single company.

The APE code (activité principale exercée) identifies the branch of activity of the company. This code is used for purely statistical matters, although it must appear in all the legal documents of the company.

You will probably be referred to either the CMA (Centre des Métiers et de l’Artisanat) Chamber of Artisans or the CCI (Chambre de Commerce et l’Industrie), Chamber of Commerce, depending on the kind of business you are creating and don’t forget to get an RC Pro insurance (Responsabilité Civile Professionnelle), civil liability insurance.

Every year you may be required to pay the CFE tax (cotisation foncière des entreprises), business property tax and this will be paid to the SIE (services des impôts des enterprises), the company tax department rather than the SIP (services des impôts des particuliers) which is for personal taxes.

 

Registering a vehicle

 

Whether you are importing or buying or selling a French car you will need a CT (contrôle technique) or MOT. You will need to register on the government website ANTS (Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés) in order to get your CI (certificat d’immatriculation) car registration papers, which used to be know as a carte grise!

 

Social

 

A civil partnership is called a PACS (Pacte Civil de Solidarité).

You may have the right to claim benefits in which case you will apply to the CAF (Caisse des allocations familiales).

If you have worked in both France and abroad and can claim a French pension you will want to apply to transfer time worked abroad via the CLEISS (Centre des Liaisons Européennes et Internationales de Sécurité Sociale).

A very topical subject is a CDS (carte de séjour) official residency card and if you are non-European you will need to go through the OFII (Office Français Immigration Intégration) the French immigration authorities.

 

Other acronyms that you will come across are RIB (relevé d’identité bancaire) which are you bank details.

If you are an animal lover the French equivalent of the RSPCA is the SPA.

If you go travelling you may use the SNCF (Société national des Chemin de Fer Française) the national train service and you may travel on a high speed train or TGV (train à grand vitesse).

If someone indicates you should go to the RDC they mean the ground floor (rez-de -chaussée) and they may write SVP which simply means please (s’il vous plaît).

 

This is just a tip of the acronym iceberg but hopefully will demystify some of those cryptic on-line posts or conversations.

To end with I would like to share my own personal favourite acronym which is the SPANC (Service Publique d’Assainissement Non-Collectif) who are the people that come out to check your septic tanks.

Many a moment of merriment has been had when asking people if they have been “SPANC ked”

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