I typed it before, but I'll repaste my opinion on Nick's scenario. "Maintain VFR and either go back to get under the layer in VMC or divert to somewhere you can land at within your licence and rating privileges. If you can't, declare an emergency. "
Good. Declare your emergency, tell the controller (I wonder which one you are going to talk to in some parts of France) of your situation and that you have an instrument rating which you cant use in the aircraft or airspace in which you find yourself and therefore you have no alternative to ask him what to do. Mention while you are about it that there is 1,000 foot of undercast with tops way above the MSA and you were thinking about transitioning from VMC on top to VMC below.
If that is the way you want to play it, fine by be.
I don't know what set of rules you are talking about. The rule I am talking about, the one about not continuing VFR into IMC does protect you from the potentially misplaced belief that it is ok to do so.
What a complete load of nonesense.
We are debating whether there are any circumstances in which a qualified, trained and current pilot should or should not make a brief incursion into IMC for the purposes of recovering to an airfield that was forecast to have broken or scattered cloud cover with a base well above the MSA not a pilot deliberately flying a sector in IMC with a IAP recovery in IMC.
The fact you dont see the difference is for the same reason that you dont see the difference between making an intelligent and informed decision and making a prat of yourself.
Still I can see we are clearly in complete disagreement so I am going to leave it there.
(all good fun and dont take it personally, I know there are those that always see things in black and white and are uncomfortable ever departing from the rule book regardless of circumstances - I dont have a problem with that I might add if that is your cup of tea).
Dp
If scattered or broken is not good enough for you then I can only imagine you dont go very far. 
and when the holes are just a little too small to not be actually in IMC but to still be outside your licence priviliges by all means divert back to whence you came, all fine by me.