Who will think of the British ex-pats stranded in France?

I want you, just for today, to imagine me as an expatriate version of Mark Carney, looking ahead to life in France after Brexit. I know, I know … as a Canadian working in London, Carney is himself an expat, but I’m guessing he won’t lose out when Britain leaves the EU. He will return home his pockets stuffed with gold. I, on the other hand, will lose out, and so will the other 1.3 million UK citizens who, quite lawfully, chose to live their lives elsewhere in Europe in the decades prior to the referendum.

As it happens, my estimation of the expat dilemma is actually a lot like that of the Bank of England governor assessing prospects for the economy in the event of No Deal. There has been progress. A lot of preparations have been made. But the risk of more than a million Brits stumbling into a disorderly exit remains “alarmingly high”, and it is “absolute nonsense” to think otherwise.

Before I go on, bear that number – 1.3 million – in mind. It is more than the combined populations of Manchester and Leeds, and two-thirds of them are over the age of 55. Imagine now what would happen if they felt they had no alternative other than to return home, most of them to England, where they would have to find somewhere to live and then register with their local GP. There would be mayhem.

But, you may point out, that isn’t going to happen. Most of them – most of us, I should say – will find a way to carry on without going bust or sleeping rough. And you would be right. We’re a canny lot and have learned a thing or two during our years abroad. We’re not all going to turn up at Dover on whichever day it might be that we crash out of Europe.

But that is the end of the good news. If No Deal does happen, the levels of anxiety among Brits across the EU will shoot up like the mercury in a thermometer at midday in Benidorm. Will we still have health cover? Will the value of our homes plummet? Will the younger ones among us be entitled to work? Will we be allowed to keep our bank accounts? Will our state pensions be indexed (unlike those paid to Brits in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand)? In short, who will look after us and what is to become of us?

Each of the issues I have itemised is real. Health care is at the top of the list of concerns. Here in France, as things stand, my healthcare, and that of my wife, is provided basically free of charge by the French state. We pay GPs 25 euros in cash (mine always puts it straight into his wallet) at the end of each visit, but nothing more. Top-up insurance pays hospital bills beyond the cost of clinical or remedial treatment, but prescriptions are free, which probably explains why the French take a shoebox with them when they visit the chemist’s. All we have to do is produce our carte vitale and the doctor will see you now.

This could vanish in the event of No Deal. It is dependent on the existence of reciprocal rights, meaning that if you have paid into the healthcare system in your home country, you are entitled to treatment in the other 27 member states. Billing British citizens for the actual cost of care post-Brexit would mean that those with serious or chronic conditions could easily face bankruptcy. At the very least, it would add four or five thousand euros a year to the cost of living in France.

Property prices are another issue. The French – and not just the French – don’t view property the way Brits do. In central Paris, you can still find a handsome two-bedroom apartment for less than £700,000, while in the provinces a whole house, with an acre of land, could set you back as little as £60,000. The thing is that whereas we see a house or a flat as an investment, the French see them as places in which to live, often for ther entire adult lives.

The English, taking advantage of this novel circumstance, have tended to buy wrecks, which they then renovate over time. Most Brits I know have devoted loving attention to their homes and gardens, helping in the process to preserve what the French like to call their rual patrimony. The corollary of this is that British savings and pensions go a long way in France. Most expats are self-sufficient. Cash raised from the sale of their homes in England is eked out over the years, boosting their income – otherwise made up of state and private pensions – so that they manage to pay their bills and do not have to leach off their host countries.

But if outgoings increase as a result of Brexit, the sums in many cases will no longer add up. For others, if work permits are withdrawn (which could happen, especially for those whose grasp of the language is shaky), the very basis of their domestic economy will be shattered. Thousands will be forced to sell up and move back to Blighty, resulting in a slump in property prices that will leave the reverse immigrants with little or nothing with which to rebuild their lives.

And it doesn’t end there. Most Brits in France (and in Spain) transfer money as and when they need it from their UK banks accounts to banks in their local towns. But in future it may well be the case that non-EU citizens will be denied the right to maintain bank accounts in France, leading to a dependance on ruinously expensive UK bank cards to withdraw funds at a premium out of French cash points.

Have I mentioned the impact of the falling pound? Since the summer of 2016, the value of sterling against the euro has gone down by something like 10 per cent, and the experts are looking at a further 10 per cent drop should there be a No Deal Brexit. For many Brits living on fixed incomes in France, such a development could be the last straw. They will sell up (or try to sell up in a falling market) and make straight for the Channel ports, en route to God-knows-what future awaits them in England.

Yes, you say, but surely there will be more EU citizens leaving the UK than Brits quitting Europe. Won’t things just balance out? No. They won’t. The Government, with Labour backing, has already said that, no matter what happens over Brexit, EU citizens will be encouraged to stay on in the UK with the same rights and privileges they currently enjoy. In fact, it has been made clear that there will be more immigrants in future, not fewer, albeit mainly from Asia and Africa rather than Europe. So an additional tide of elderly Brits would not be taking up vacant space, they would be adding to the crush.

Let me end on a personal note. On Thursday of this week, my wife and I, and a much older friend, recently widowed, turned up, by appointment, at the préfecture in St Brieuc to negotiate the residence permits (cartes de séjours) that, post-Brexit, are to become a legal requirement. We had driven 100 kms for an eight-thirty appointment, but when we reached the head of the line (as Obama would say), it was to be told that our appointments had been cancelled “because of uncertainty over Brexit”. It turns out that we will be granted not a five or ten-year permit, but one for just 12 months, renewable annually, and then only once the French authorities have decided what our future status will be.

I don’t pretend that the issue of expats should be at the top of the list of priorities for Theresa May and Michel Barnier as they struggle to obtain closure on Brexit. But do not make the mistake of dismissing the dilemma faced by Brits abroad as somebody else’s problem, not yours. Because if Britain crashes out of Europe without a deal, an army of homeless pieds-noirs anglais brandishing their National Insurance cards could yet end up heading in your direction.