The sooner the French start this Euro IMC rating the better, now that it is a French idea it should give the Eurocrats no problem with implimenting it.
One inccident that happend to me makes me sure that the IMC has a real safety case...........................
I was making an ILS approach at a French airfield, the weather was 2000m overcast at 300ft with light rain. A very panicy VFR pilot who had got his planning very wrong, he was making position reports that made some sort of sence but then suddenly reported that he was "base leg, turning final".
As I was at about 800 feet on the ILS at the time I had no option but to go around as I could not see him.
When I did get on the ground I talked to the guy and it was clear that he had been totaly out of his depth with the conditions that he was flying in, I am sure you could have sold this guy an IMC rating on the spot but it was not an option in France.
Would it not have been better for this guy to have had the option (and trainning) to abandon any hope of VFR flight long before the "VFR" approach to the airfield and climb into the radar controled enviroment to seek radar vectors to the ILS?
I know that we cant keep politics out of flight safety but least hope that now the EASA IMC is a French idea it will go ahead and then just maybe the rest of Europe will reach the same standards of flight safety that the UK has.