Register with France Travail

Signing on with the public employment service, formerly Pôle emploi. It gives you jobseeker status and is the step that opens a claim for unemployment benefit.

Only if you are looking for work. Any nationality can register provided you live in France; a foreign national needs a residence permit that allows work here.

Registration is open whenever you are job hunting. Service-public states you must register within 12 months of losing your job to claim unemployment benefit.

Online on francetravail.fr, or at an agency if you have no internet access.

Service-public states you must attend an interview with an adviser within 30 days of registering.

Registering with France Travail is free.

• A personal space is created and you are given your France Travail number.
• You meet an adviser, and a "contrat d'engagement" is drawn up from that interview.
• Claiming unemployment benefit is a separate step with its own conditions.

Jobseeker status has to be kept up by the periodic declarations France Travail asks for.