Advice on moving to France and starting a business?

I have just joined your forum on starting a business in France, and have read the really useful posts here. I would like to explain my situation and see what your advice would be. I am currently working three days a week as an employee of a UK company providing marketing consultancy to the academic publishing industry, but I work remotely either in my home in the UK or at my home in France. I am currently paying all my taxes and social charges in the UK as my place of residence is still the UK.

In order to allow myself even more flexibility, from the beginning of April I will be moving to be a freelancer and managing all my own tax/social charge payments, although I will still mainly work for my current employer. At this time, I would like to spend more time in France.

How should I manage this from a business in France perspective. I initially thought that I would set up as an auto-entrepreneur (micro-entrepreneur), but am not sure this is possible for these reasons:

• My income is from one employer, although I set my hourly rates, choose the contracts I work on and choose the hours I work. Through my employer I work for a number of different clients. My expenses are minimal - approximately 200 euros per month.
• My potential earnings from my freelance work would be in the region of 40,000 euros a year - although I would be prepared to drop my hours if necessary.

My earnings from renting my property in the UK would be around 10,000 euros a year (I own the house with my partner, we’re not married, and he has half the income and I have the other half).

I really don’t want to manage this through a portage salariale unless it really is the last resort as I would have to make my hourly rate very high in order to maintain the same income I have presently.

My questions are:

1. Could you advise what would be the most appropriate business structure if I was to move to France?
2. What would be the situation if I decided to remain an official employee of my company in the UK - but moved to France. What are their responsibilities?
3. Finally - if I do make the move, I would like to import my two pedigree labradors into the French system to set up a small hobby breeding kennel to breed and sell puppies to homes in France who specialise in working dogs. I know I must be registered and I have had some conversations with the SCC and LOF regarding the dog’s requirements. But can you advise on the business requirements for doing this?