# Work as an au pair at age 35 in France?



## Cat Boycott

Hello everyone,
I am 35, a British national and would like to try and get a job in France for 6-12 months in order to improve my French, possibly as an Au Pair.

From a brief google search - some au pair programmes mention an age limit of 30 years old - is this a legally binding age limit which has been imposed on all people wishing to be au pairs?
And you would not be given a visa to work as an au pair if you are over 30 years old?

As the UK is no longer part of the EU, I understand that I will need a work visa and I will need my employer to sponsor the work visa (which can be a difficult thing to achieve) in order to work in France.

If anyone has any recommendations for websites to use to look for work (not necessarily Au Pair work) in France - I would sincerely welcome any suggestions!

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Cat


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## Bevdeforges

As far as I know, the age limit of 30 is a hard and fast limit. The au pair program is designed to allow young people to come to France as students, living with a family and doing limited child care in exchange for room and board. This gives the details for the au pair visa: Young au pair | France-Visas.gouv.fr

The pdf document they refer you to is the standard (and required) au pair contract, which limits the hours you can work and the type of work you can be expected to do. An au pair is supposed to be treated as a member of the family rather than as a hired hand and priority is supposed to be given to the au pair to attend the classes (preferably French language classes) over household responsibilities. 

I see that a few of the au pair agencies indicate that they have positions for those who don't meet the au pair requirements - mostly as "babysitters" or "nannys" - though there may be additional qualification requirements for these types of jobs and accommodation is not necessarily part of the deal. 

One other possibility for you might be to go for a student visa - for a French language program. On a student visa, you can work part time (there is a limit, which works out to be about half time - 20 hours a week or so) - usually stuff like fast food counter work, or similar stuff, which cannot interfere with the classes you are enrolled in. But the part-time work is only expected to get you pocket money - to get the student visa you need to be able to show you have sufficient financial resources for the time you expect to be in France (for housing, food, etc.). Still, I'm told you can live fairly cheaply as a student in France.

You could always take a look at Campus France for some idea of the language programs that would get you a student visa. Accueil | Campus France


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