Under the totalization provisions set forth in Articles 12 and 13 of the Agreement, SSA and the responsible French agencies will take account of periods of social security coverage completed under the laws of the other country insofar as those periods do not coincide with periods already credited under their own laws.  Article 8.3 of the Administrative Arrangement makes clear that where periods of U.S. and French coverage do coincide, each country, in determining entitlement to and the amount of totalization benefits, will count only the periods credited under its own laws (disregarding the coinciding period under the other country’s laws).  This provision has significance primarily in calculating the amount of French totalization benefits (i.e., where entitlement is established based on combined U.S. and French periods of coverage.)  Under Article 13.4(b)(iii) of the Agreement, such benefits will be proportional to the ratio of the duration of the French periods of coverage to the combined duration of the U.S. and French periods.  As a result of Article 8.3 of the Administrative Arrangement, in determining the value of this ratio, coinciding periods will be treated solely as French periods and therefore counted once in the numerator and once in the denominator.