I understand that the flood of expats arriving in France from the UK has slowed down quite a lot recently in the face of falling house prices and an interminable number of TV programmes telling everyone what sad miserable lives we expats lead, battling against poverty, bureaucracy, and of course the French.
Ah well, not to worry, I’m sure those of us here will muddle by somehow. But before you think the flood has finished first read this quote I came across:
‘No Egyptian ever dreaded the approach of a swarm of locusts more than the native residents of the little towns of France do the settling down of a flight of English. For the result in both cases is the same…
…scarcity and dearness of every article of consumption. I met, in the remoter parts of Brittany, three or four old Englishmen, many years resident in the country, who constantly retreat before the advancing flood of their countrymen…knowing that to live cheaply they must find some part of the country where English gold has not yet penetrated’
They are right of course, if all else fails we can all move away from Provence and the Dordogne and live in an abandoned village in the Auvergne where a house still costs less than a postage stamp, spend the money left over on enough bread, cheese and wine to last a lifetime…and about 94 umbrellas and a lot of wellington boots.
But the amazing thing about the quote above? It was written by Trollope in 1839 when describing Brittany. Hence the situation has been more or less the same for 170 years – except perhaps during two World Wars, since I assume demand for property in France by expats diminished slightly in the early 1940′s.
So the in-flood of expats might have abated momentarily, but I think we can assume it’s a temporary pause, and it’s only a matter of time until the papers are once again full of stories of the ‘English invasion’…
Happy Fête Nationale, France!
oMan
The last time I looked, the UK foreign office reported
350,000 French living in the UK
500,000 UK residents living in France
I never cease to be amazed by the way of “old hand” Brits living in France bemoan the “newcomers” failing to recognise that they are just as much a part of any issue (if any) as the newcomers.
If you believe in EU principles then this type of swapping is a natural part of the way things are going.
The Brits since they are often mono-lingual and also awkward on foreign soil often make apology for themselves failing to recognise that “everybody is at it”. The only real difference culturally that I percieve is that the Dutch, Scandanavians, Germans etc tend to not be mono-lingual, not be awkward about taking their EU right to live abroad. The only reason the Brits stand out in my opinion is that they dont learn languages and exhibit this awkwardness on foreign soil – continental Europeans have grown up typically no more than 500km from the nearest international boundary – they dont see it as an issue to live on the other side and dont offer apology for taking their EU right to do so.
I wish Brits would stop apologising and instead learn what is necessary to fit in so they dont stand out. Spain is a disaster – I cringe everytime I see Brits buying houses who dont speak a word of Spanish and get the Spanish professionals to speak English for them – Uggh even rudimentary Spanish would be fine.
I have been living in France for just four years and am fed up of English (often middle aged or elderly) proudly telling me they have been here for ten twenty or however many years as though it is something to be proud of as they stand at the till in the supermarket struggling to speak to the cashier.
After four years in France I speak French fluently, I am 25 years old and when I speak to a french person they believe that I am French myself. I have not been educated in France nor have I spent my childhood here and yet I speak the language fluently and the local patois (Ch’tin – here in the north 62) competently. What does this say? Everyday I receive at least five ‘phone calls from services in the area, doctors, vets, trésorerie etc… asking me to come in and translate for English people that have usually been here in France for more than fifteen years. This is a service I provide free of charge, I could charge but I don’t. Why? Because I want to help other English people. I recently had to provide my passport to a Parisian Policier who refused categorically to believe that I was not French. If I can achieve this in four years, why cannot others?
I have integrated into local life here, not buy spending small fortunes at Carrefour or HC or by buying and drinking large quantities of wine and eating snails but by truly living the french way. I could rail on for hours about how to truly fit in both in rural and urban France but I think this “reply” has already gone on too long. Anyone who has any questions for me can email me at mat62870@yahoo.fr
Be willing to help yourself and I would be willing to help you out if you need it.
Have to agree. We’ve been looking into moving either to Italy or France in a few years time. We’ve been to France many times and Italy for the last 3 years on holiday, my wife is almost fluent but I just don’t pick up languages well al all. However I lived just outside Paris back in the 80′s for just over a year and 2 months in the Haute Alps, and it took me 6 months of struggling and frustration before I finally got a breakthrough in French, and 20+ years on can still remember most of it. Like Matt Smith above – I learned to speak it as they do, and it’s got me into trouble some times because they think you’re fluent and so then speak at full speed! (My wife has the same problem in Italy!) We avoid Spain and ‘England in the sun’ places like the plague, preferring to go where there are no English, and to be ‘forced’ into having to speak the local language and in Italy especially most people don’t speak English, but as I’ve found many times and in several countries, if you make the effort to communicate on their terms they really do appreciate it – after laughing at you for being ‘stupid English’ first of course but then you have to expect that and laugh with them. Sometimes I’m frankly embarrassed to be English when you look at places like Spain and Ibiza. I felt a real sense of accomplishment in learning French (I was rubbish at it in school) and felt much more at ease in France and enjoyed my time there much more. I think it’s actually quite rude and arrogant to expect to live in another country and yet not integrate into their way of life. We see it in the UK with other nationalities and complain about it, but we do the very same thing when we go abroad.
Agree whole-heartedly with both Matts. Utmost respect to you both. Would love to live and work in France but not sure circumstances ae right at the mo. Envy the pair of you
Salut
As a new ‘expat’ aged 55 years I read this thread with interest. We’ve all been told that we need to learn the language to fit in but it’s not that easy when you’re older, and research has proved that at my age I’ll never be able to sound like a native. However, thanks to joining French lessons my schoolgirl French has improved. I’ve also had to take my dog to the Vet and talk to French Estate agents, all in my broken French. But this morning for the first time I was not embarrassed by not speaking French, what little I had seemed to come naturally and all of a sudden I feel much better. The more you have to speak french the quicker it comes.
Now my shyness has gone I expect to improve by yards (or should that be metres?)