There are circumstances in which it would be sensible to move to France. If you are nearing the end of your working life you will have probably paid off your mortgage or be very near to that stage.

So here is my concept. The cost of living is higher in France than in the UK and the various taxes are very high. But the population of the UK is 4.2% greater than the population of France which has 2.275 times as much land as the UK. So the cost of buying land is much cheaper in France and this is one of the factors that makes the price of houses in France much cheaper than in the UK for comparable houses in comparable settings.

I have in the past lived in France, partially for 7 years and then fully for 5 years. I speak French competently, still study life there and have friends there. If your house in the UK is worth £300,000 you could sell it and move to a similar house in a similar setting in France for not much more than £100,000 worth of euros. All that you need to do is have a decent search of the numerous French estate agency web sites. On many of them you can select an option to show all text in English. There are also specialist estate agencies that are in the UK that sell property in France. Thus your gain of £200,000 will seriously make up for the French high cost of living and high taxes. I have seen French houses at a price of 40,000 euros that could be made to be quite respectable, given a further spend of 20,000 euros. These are not difficult to find.

My 7 years of partially living in south west France were in the village of Tillac in the département of Gers, which is number 32 on the map below. My 5 years fully spent in south west France were in the small town of Maubourguet in the département of Hautes-Pyrénées, which is number 65 on the map below.