Pangur

I haven't an MBA, but did classes with a highly regarded MBA course as part of my own masters.  The vast majority of students on this course had their fees paid for by the company they were working for, were in middle management in blue chip companies or on a fast track to middle management and had taken leave to study for it. The standard of MBAs varies widely and one from an unknown or unproven university may be totally worthless- I know people with one and they can hardly put a memo together and others who are at the top of their game.  There is a lot of money in MBAs for the universities - they are much more expensive than other masters, mainly I think because companies pay the fees, not individuals.  The advice I have heard from MBA lecturers is that they are most useful after some years in the workplace and doing one straight after your primary degree is not a good idea as you have no idea how the business world runs. The other thing is that in many countries, and France seems to be one, a degree is a standard qualification, so lots of companies, particularly international ones, will specified advanced degree in recruitment material.  A reputable MBA will stand up in any country and will of course be accepted in French companies.   It is one way of getting your CV bumped up a little, but for many jobs it will at just put you on the playing field.  They may have been pretty special a decade or two ago, but advanced degrees are becoming more and more common.  What career are you looking at? What type of qualifications do prospective companies ask for? Is it going to mean you are overqualifed academically and underqualified in terms of acutal business experience. http://education.guardian.co.uk/mba/ has loads of articles on different MBAs and on the site somewhere should be a list of the best ones in the world....  

Sounds like a throwaway comment.... having a masters in one subject (and probably in a very specialised, academic sub-topic) doesn't mean you never have to do another exam.   Most degrees are not vocational - to get specific job skills you have to re-train. 

I think most of the common policies have been set up with a view to making cross-country employment and business easier - it's not really geared towards EU citizens working all their lives in one country and retiring in another.  I'm a great fan of the EU but I don't believe tax and health systems across Europe will ever be fully harmonised as there is no way (for example) a UK goverment would be elected if it was prepared to up employer social contributions to anywhere near French levels.

[quote user="chessie"]Well, that is exactly what happens to UK citizens. Yes, we have chosen to come and live in France. Yes, we accept that we have to join the system and pay our way again. But having paid ALL our dues in the UK, it does seem unfair that we now have to pay additional health insurance. In a fair world we would be able to live in France without GBrown touching any of our money; we would be able to bring with us our entitlement to free healthcare which we have already paid for and using, say a voucher system, if we needed healthcare out here then for the UK government to refund in full to the French health service for any care that a retired UK citizen might need. [/quote] With health care, you simply haven't paid into the same thing so it's fair that you shouldn't benefit from it.  Why should any government (French or UK) allow UK citizens who have decided to move to France, access a superior healthcare  system (according to WHO) indefinitely, having paid a fraction of the dues paid by French citizens?  UK citizens pay less social charges than French citizens - why allow them get French healthcare on the cheap?  I doubt that you have paid as much towards the NHS as a French citizen has paid towards the French healthcare system over a working life, even excluding the top up insurance!  The E forms allow for a period of transition, which seems fair. The UK is, I believe, pretty unique in its totally free healthcare at the point of acess.  Your entitlement to free healthcare is applicable to the UK only and it should stay that way.  I paid UK tax for 10 years - I didn't use the schools, rarely used the health service, claimed no benefits and essentially cost the UK taxpayer the minimum possible while paying my taxes, social insurance and pension contributions.  I don't expect "dues".  I moved to France knowing that some of the benefits I have built up will be lost and I will essentially have to start again.  These things should be taken into account when people are deciding whether or not to make the move. 

Have you tried concentrating on the ski regions when looking at the market?  I know of many chalets and hotels with saunas and of many Brits who work on renovating and maintaining chalets for those who have second homes in the region.  I'm assuming longbows are wooden?  There is also a large interest in wood crafts in the Alps - Les Gets (near Geneva) runs a festival of wood every second year and they seem to make everything from toadstools and children's games to high end crafts.  They also have a competition with men fashioning toadstoold etc in an hour with chainsaws....    Alpine and Savoyard furniture are very fashionable at the moment and it might be a good area for people with an interest and skills in carpentry.    

[quote] This is just a con aimed at the people who need cheap flights the most. We must keep complaining about this. (This is not a Brit thing). The best time to complain is at check-in. The time when airlines can least afford the delays and when you cause them most embarassment. [/quote] Why should customers be penalised for others' failure to follow the rules?  There is nothing worse than being held up at an airport by people with an over-inflated sense of self-importance who seem to think the rules don't apply to them.  From my experience, most of the people whining at check-in desks have caused their own problems.  The only people they're embarrassing are themselves.   I don't think it is possible to embarrass Micheal O'Leary - the only way you can hurt him is by not using his airline. It's not a con - it's their policy.  If you don't like it or think you're being ripped off, find some other way to get there (as you do) or complain in a way that doesn't affect other customers who have followed the terms and conditions. They're currently advertising flights to Pau for 0.99. Do people really think they can offer this kind of price without having pretty tough t&c? I don't fly Ryanair if I can at all help it, but when I have to, I make sure I know the t&c, where the airport is and am there for check-in opening.  I accept that if I am late, through no fault of  my own, I will get bumped.  With all the publicity about Ryanair in the UK media, I don't understand how anyone expects anything else.      

Have people gone done and actually spoken to the teacher directly and discussed the problem face to face rather than relying on what their children and neighbours are saying?  Surely the teacher is the very first point of call if you are having a problem with him/her that isn't particularly sensitive.  There doesn't seem to be much point in going to the principal or lead teachers without talking to the actual teacher first and getting his or her point of view.  Perhaps he marks down for using words that are not in the dictionary, perhaps native english pupils have spent years making up words or constantly challenging the teacher and this is a reaction, who knows?  Surely going directly to superiors just antagonises situations.  Has anyone ever spoken to their child's teacher directly about incorrect marking and received any kind of explanation?    

[quote user="Georgina"] Back to the original thread: my french friends tell me that none of the English teachers they have ever had have ever been to England!! Georgina [/quote] There are plenty of other places to learn or practice perfectly good English you know...[:D] I would imagine most of the French teachers in UK schools are British, not French and that their less than perfect accents and lack of knowledge of modern French slang and vocabulary might shock a French person.   I was taught French by a septogenarian nun who had honed her French in the Cote d-Ivoire.  Didn-t do me much harm in exams and her teaching has stood me in good stead here, although I imagine the French we were taught might have been a bit bizarre to people in the Hexagon.  

I've just returned from a christmas break in Dublin and the training of smokers to go outside has been astoundingly quick.  As you may know smoking has been banned from public places so Irish smokers are now used to braving the weather and popping outside restaurants, pubs, hotels etc.  But what surprised me this year was that lots of private homes have followed through choice.  I did a bit of socialising with friends and family and not once did I see anyone light up indoors and this included homes of smokers and people of all ages.  Us smokers were to be found huddled out the back doors of family homes, and although it was a bit miserable, most Irish smokers I know accept it - and even try to ban it from their own homes now.  With the number of countries at least thinking of introducing a similar ban, I am sure that it comes as no shock to most smokers to be asked to step outside to indulge.    

With a bit of luck we'll still be needing heating in our home in 40 years time and with current oil prices and availability we reckon we might not have much of a choice in the coming years!  No magic ideas of yet, but its definitely something that we feel is worth investigating further....

http://www.ademe.fr/  is a national enviroment agency.  They've lots of useful little booklets you can download or write off for under their guide practique section - everything from insulating your house to noise reduction and recycling, and some do have rough price guides for different measures.  The guides are very user friendly, with lots of helpful pictures and diagrams for the novices among us!  I'm not sure if they do diagnostics, but I'm sure they will be able to put you in touch with someone who does. Given the fact that they claim there's only about 50 years worth of oil left, it seems a bit mad to be moving towards installing oil rather than another form of heating.  We have oil at the moment, but are planning on switching to another form in the next few years. 

There was meant to be a wink after my dialect comment btw...  Does the Acadamie rule on language matters in Quebec or West African francophone countries?  Or have their languages evolved in the same way that American English has?  

Apparently the bizarre French counting systems is a throwback from the Celts who had a different system of counting to Roman decimalisation.  So soixante-dix can be seen as an homage to ancient history perhaps....think of Asterisk as you add your 15 onto the base [:D] The Swiss use lots of different words (even ordering a coffee or a beer seems to require a different vocabulary) and as Jond said, I  reckon a lot of it is just a way of making sure no-one thinks they're French.  Of course different countries will have different vocabs depending on the different influences on the language around them.  My English is influenced in parts by Gaelic.  There are words the Irish use when speaking English that British people don't understand (a press is a cupboard, a hotpress is an airing cupboard...) and we pronounce the same words a little differently, based on the Gaelic alphabet.  Ask an Irish person to say E.R.  You'll think we're talking about Winnie the Pooh. It's not wrong, it's our version of English.  Languages need to evolve and adapt to local usage or they die.  RP and the Queen's English is a particulary British thing - English is no longer a language solely for the British and given the numbers of non-Brits writing, speaking  and adapting the language, the British can no longer expect to control its usuage.  British-English is just another dialect now[;)]  

Certain categories of workers are certainly allowed have special private insurance schemes - where I live, frontaliers who work in Switzerland but live in France take out private medical insurance via French insurance agencies, which allow them to access French or Swiss state health services.  Your contribtion to CPAM is essentially included in the premium.  The same may be true for French residents living in EU border areas, and possibly true for any French residents communting to the UK.

[quote user="Champagnac"] And the bizarre thing is that UK-trained, qualified and experienced English teachers are, unless the regulations have changed recently, not acceptable to the French authorities as teachers ! Also, we have a French friend who obtained an English degree in France, a PGCE teaching qualification in England and taught English in Secondary schools in the UK to GCSE level. She speaks impeccable English with the slightest (if you KNOW to listen for it) hint of an accent.On her return to France she was not deemed qualified to teach English.  Is it any wonder the teaching is a little suspect ? [/quote] Hardly bizarre - a French -trained teacher cannot necessarily  waltze into a permanent French teaching post in a UK school without Qualified Teacher Status, which generally means extra assessment.  I'm sure it is the same in every EU state.  Degrees and experience are not necessarily equivalent in each country.  Teaching ethos and approaches are extremely different across EU states and it's not surprising that a little extra training is needed.   I would assume with the employment figures the way they are in France, it would be a lot easier for a school to hire a teacher trained in the same country rather than wait for them to pass assessments.           

[quote user="Val_2"]Why don't they employ properly qualified english teachers and not american-english? .[/quote] Because American English is as valid as British English.  It unreasonable to suggest that American English teachers are wrong - it's just not what you're used to.  International companies often use American English as the default language, so it's definitely important to learn, or at least be able to recognise the differences.  For example,  I often have to "translate" documents from US to British English and back again.  And the spelling must be a lot easier for students! Why not ask the Head to suggest that a class be devoted to the different types of English in use, as it's important to recognise both as valid and it is definitely unfair that your son, or others who have learnt British English, are penalised for using it, without there being a clear policy on which form of English is used.  Sounds like the teacher could do with a class in it too! What do they do for state exams as a matter of interest - are both accepted?

I'm not missing the point Fontremy - I simply don't see how people think they should be exempt from a tax that pays for local maintenance simply because they spend the same or more on local services and shops or even bringing extra people to the area.   The money is not going to the same services.  The argument that as a non-resident you're not benefiting as much from the services holds a hell of a lot more sway than paying more to local businesses.  Yes, the money you pay to local businesses on holidays will help the overall economy, but it will not pay directly for services in the way that a locally imposed and collected tax does.   It is unlikely that the money you pay artisans will ever find its way into the coffers of your local Marie.  You can argue about free market economics, but currently, the way goverment is run in France, and indeed in the UK, means that locally collected taxes are key for communities.  Remember that the upkeep of the towns and villages that are attracting your guests is paid for in part by local taxes.   The politicians deciding on where the taxes that your local restauranteur pays to URSSAF are spent are not the same locally elected politicians that decide how to spend the local taxes.  In fact, as non-French citizens cannot vote, the only people I can directly lobby to spend my taxes more efficently are  the local politicians. 

I'm confused: what would buying locally have to do with paying local taxes?  How does employing an artisan help the budget of your commune?  Why should you get brownie points with the tax man for using local artisans and shops? I'm willing to be corrected on this but I was assuming, based on our commune newsletters, that my local taxes go to the same kind of things local taxes in other countries go to e.g. running of the Marie, including dealing with the planning permissions (possibly submitted by second homeowners spending thousands on renovations), the upkeep of local roads, street lighting in local villages, recycling, rubbish collection, deneigement where necessary, possibly contribution to policing and fire-brigades as well as local social activities.  All things that have to be done regardless of whether you live there or not.  More importantly, if you are not living in the commune, whether resident in Paris or the UK, the commune will not be given money from central government for you.  In most countries, a census will determine the proportion of money a commune or council will get from central government.  If 10% of a commune consists of non-residents, the commune will get less money from central government, even though the maintenance will be similar.  In which case, it makes sense to ensure that non-residents make up for the loss of money from central government through the payment of local taxes.

Thanks for that.  The tax rates are fine, it's the social insurance that scares me....

I know this didn't get any response first time round, but can anyone shed anylight on this?  I'd also like to add: do you have to pay social insurance as well as income tax on company dividends? We'll get professional advice when filling out our tax forms, but it would be nice to know now whether we'll see much (or any) money from dividends.....   thanks  

It's not "brit bashing" - it's cheaper to just bar risky people now rather than deal with possibly infected blood in your banks. Neither can you give blood in the US if you lived in the UK between for at least six months between 1980 and 1996 - according to the FDA in any case. In fact the American Red Cross won't let you give blood if you spent 3 months in the UK during that period.

O'Leary plans to launch in-flight gambling AND the ability to use mobile phones (for which Ryanair will get part of the roaming charge). Won't that make the flights more pleasurable? http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,3604,1607224,00.html

Is it property in a ski resort? That might work in a totally different way, especially if it is a UK property agency selling on behalf of Brits to Brits...

I've seen houses with many, many (French) agencies in Haute Savoie and for all of them, the advertised price included agency fees, but not notaires fees (which obviously) have to be added. Unfortunately we never came across any agencies where the seller footed the bill. I'm surprised they get any sellers signing up with them! It 'feels' like you're (the buyer) not paying any fees as the cost of fees is already calucated in the asking price, but the vendor gets the net price not the gross so effectively the buyer pays. Maybe they mean "additional" fees on top of the asking price?

"And I don't think that the issue is being qualified or not to be a teacher, it is about whether you are a civil servant, for which here, as in the UK, you have to take exams." Maybe I'm missing something here, but surely a UK trained teacher, even with fluent written and spoken French, and years of experience cannot expect to become a teacher in a French school without some sort of retraining? Surely an English trained lawyer cannot practice French law without a conversion exam? It makes sense. In Ireland, primary school teachers with degrees from outside the republic have to do an Irish exam (i.e. the language) to become a permanent teacher. They do get about 5 years to do it, but the principle is the same. The curriculum and ethos is different according to each European country and this surely needs to be taken into account.