I have spent several hours reading this forum and can find somewhat similar cases, but no answer to the questions I am going to ask now.
I am an American, with long term Carte de Sejour in France via reason of marriage, married to a UK citizen and resident here for over 5 years. I cannot get a UK passport as we have never lived there (he has not since the 1980s) and I can apply now for a French passport and naturalization but was told that thanks to new procedures put in place by Sarkozy it will take up to 4 years to obtain. Obviously, I need a job faster than this.
I'd been working remotely from home in the mountains in the Haute Savoie for the Paris branch of a US company for 12 years, but was made redundant last year when my software was sent to India for 'maintenance' rather than continuing to be developed. I am an IT specialist, not a typical Windows or Java code monkey but a software architect on those kinds of large midrange systems used by banks and pharmaceuticals, worked for IBM previously on the operating system in fact, speak fluent enough French to work in French blah blah blah. So I thought my chances of getting a Swiss work permit were good (and so did my potential employer). There is not much market for this type of job near my in France (though I continue to search) - Geneva is in fact the closest market.
I received a solid work offer from a private bank headquartered in Geneva last October. I know that they honestly did look for someone else for the position, and could not fill it as I actually refused their initial offer in August and came back to me with another offer in October.
After 4 months of waiting, one rejection in December and one appeal with letters from the company heads attesting to their need for me etc. to try to hire me on a G Frontalier permit, the company had the application rejected.
The reason given was that although I have rights to long term French residency by reason of marriage that could not be denied, I apparently live outside the official zone for Frontaliers that are non-EU citizens, and the fact that I am married to an EU citizen, and the company really really needed me and that the travel time is under 1 hour to GVA was irrelevant. The person who wanted to hire me postulated this was more to do with anti-American feelings at the moment due to the banking secrets scandals between the US and Switzerland but I am not entirely sure he is correct - does anyone else have opinions or heard rumours about Americans being targeted for denials ? Does anyone know an American or other non-EU citizen living outside the official 'frontalier zone' for non-EU citizens who has successfully obtained a permit G in the past year or so ? Does anyone know a non-EU person within the official Frontalier zone who was denied a permit G in the past few months ?
In any case, according to the strict letter of the law I am outside the non-EU Frontalier zone. If I want to address that, I would need to establish residency in a town within that zone for 6 months and then a company could attempt again to request a permit G.
But before I bother relocating (involves renting the house we now own to someone else as the market is to crap to sell it, moving 8 years of 'stuff', finding suitable rental accomm. etc.) to a boring town I have no interest in being in apart from finding a job, I would like to be 100% certain that the town I chose is in fact in the legal Frontalier zone, and also to know if I could after all that trouble still be denied for the fact that there is some anti-American sentiment indeed going on or for indeed any other reason ???
For the Canton of Vaud I found an easy to understand list of French towns that they considered Frontalier for Etrangeres on their website. But I am less likely to find work in Lausanne than GVA.
However, I cannot find a similar list of 'valid Frontalier zone' French communes for Geneva. I searched the GVA canton website and it is amazingly sparse in information concerning this. It gives no list of French towns or communes considered Frontalier to the Canton of Geneva, unless they have well hidden the link.
Basically I want to live as far away from Geneva as possible into the Haute Savoie in France so that my husband can still do his job near to where we live now, yet in a town still considered Frontalier. Does anyone know for example if Sallanches, St Martin de Bellevue or Cluses are considered Frontalier to GVA for non-EU citizens ???
Secondly, I have also thought about jetting the idea of working for 'the man' altogether and going out as an independent consultant once my chômage is up in a few months, but as much of my potential business would be in Geneva, this also seems tricky. My business would be a French one as I pay all my income taxes, social charges etc. in France. But, in reading the Swiss laws, apparently I will be discriminated against by the Swiss and not really allowed to practice there more than 90 days per year, even though my company is French-registered, simply because I as the owner am an American national (if I read their law on foreign workers correctly ?).
We cannot move to Geneva as a couple (as I understand it if we did do this I would inherit his rights to work on a permit) as my husband is happy with his work in France and we do not want to leave French health care. We also happen to like the French, so don't bother slagging them off ...