-We have valid passports and identities -We are not going to take a French person's job -We have health insurance (so that we don't end up stiffing the French healthcare system) -We won't be homeless on arrival in France -We have enough savings to support ourselves for the time of our Visa's validity (because we're not allowed to work for a French based company while we're here, see second point)

I've been saving 50+% of my gross pay for the whole time I was working, and my wife is doing the same, so we had plenty of money available to buy plane tickets, pay lawyers to advise us, buy health insurance, and get help with the application process. Honestly, the lawyers were not needed and we're very expensive I would not use lawyer again. I used them because we needed to get out fast and I wanted to make sure that the first application would be successful. The instructions on the website for the French government were clear and straightforward and we could have done the application ourselves without major difficulty. There were even versions of the application forms available in English with checklists of documents to bring.

My wife is not French, but my mother, my stepfather, and my three step-siblings are. Unfortunately my mother naturalized here after I could have gotten French citizenship through her (I was 23 when she became a French citizen).