THE FIVE French overseas departments - all of which have tropical climates - were included in the calculation of France's average winter temperature which was then used to determine whether British expatriates should continue to receive the winter fuel allowance, Connexion has found.
The Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mayotte and French Guiana in South America were all included. Meteo France data is only available for the first three online but shows an average winter temperature of 26C.
The islands' temperatures were used with those of mainland France to gain an average which was then compared with 5.6C for the south-west of England. If the resulting figure was higher - as was the case with France - the country was deemed "too hot" and the payments will be stopped.
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Well I suppose the inclusion of these five tropical departements would be fair if the data was weighted - say for population. Anybody know how the statistics are processed?
Posted by: Francis Kelly | 05 September 2013 at 10:37
This is so ridiculous it would be laughable if it were not so serious for those of us who live in mainland France (which is our right).
Posted by: Michael Hardcastle | 05 September 2013 at 10:42
Many thanks for the comments, at the moment I've not found any detailed information on how they worked out the temperature difference, beyond the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia saying it used data from the last 29 years.
Also see:
UK government says it will save £30m a year from changing expat entitlement to Winter Fuel Payments
http://www.thisfrenchlife.com/thisfrenchlife/2013/07/uk-government-says-it-will-save-30m-a-year-from-changing-expat-entitlement-to-winter-fuel-payments.html
Posted by: Craig McGinty | 05 September 2013 at 10:53