Logan

Reading back this thread perhaps the French are rightly concerned with their country being 'overrun avec le Rosbifs'. Lord!

[quote user="le bouffon"]Paul,yeah I`m alright jack and so what I owe nobody nothing,and thats the way I like it.Do you think that the "les rosbifs"that come over here on a wing and a prayer should be given charity status or counselling.Just posted and caught russie`s post,no, just used some commom sense and chose the right policy for us,no one ever made any one borrow anything.So like I said I`m all right jack and so are my kids and that I all I could care about,even to the point that I have bought them a house,(but will charge them rent,all heart I know).[/quote] Are you French learning English? I only ask because your posts seem a little double Dutch!

Perhaps the most valid point we can make about Mrs T is that at the time someone of her political character was just the medicine required to shake up the status quo. I cannot believe anyone on this forum would believe the UK of the late seventies was a desirable social model that should have remained untouched. I believe it is valid to debate the past because our future ideas usually lie in the past. Something new under the sun is a very rare bird indeed. Politicians have a very short shelf life in modern societies. She was no remarkable exception, just different in her time and had the balls, (i.e. political support) to push through the remedies required. Of course pain was inflicted on a section of society who were used to a comfort zone. You cannot persuade many by the breath of an argument. A kick up the proverbial usually works wonders. Most have to be dragged kicking and screaming into reform. Humans hate change unless you can provide sufficient incentive or particular attractive options. A broad canvas usually falls flat on its face. The minority always have to suffer for a greater good. What else is war or conflict suppose to achieve? Ideas help. Its ideas and opinions which change things. Not facts. Use ideas with a persuasive argument to help influence the tide of reform. You cannot impose solutions on a people. Racists appear from the woodwork whenever they smell opportunity and sadly in present day France that opportunity is laid bare. It needs to be defeated with economic prosperity. Not retreat to the old established order. France is now in a slow state of change. Perhaps at the very beginning of a process some of us have waited patiently for. I personally have run out of time. That’s my bad luck but I sincerely wish the country well.    

[quote user="KathyC"]I don't agree with your opinions (and opinions they are, not facts). We obviously come at these questions from different political viewpoints and are unlikely to change. However, I feel strongly that you cannot separate the things you love,  the country, culture etc. and the system. If (or when , who knows) the system changes, the culture and people will also change. For many of us, the changes to British society during and after the Thatcherite era  were too great a price to pay for any  actual or perceived economic benefits.[/quote] It would be a strange and rather dull forum indeed if we only dealt in facts Kathy C. Are you from the 'Gradgrid' school of debate? It's an interesting concept. The system makes the people not the otherway round. A bit like chicken and egg, which comes first? I suggest history and cultural values form the people who develop a system. The problem is that a system must be dynamic and capable of meaningful change. All societies change. Modern democratic societies change quicker because of global influences. It is my contention that France, it's system and society is suffering from political and economic inertia. As long as radical change is resisted, decline and fall follow.  

Since you bring up the subject of Margaret Thatcher and the changes she forced through British society, I should like to draw a few parallels with modern day France. First a short history lesson! Britain had suffered years of economic decline from the late sixties onward. The country was burdened by debt, a stagnating economy and economic mismanagement by successive governments holding on to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. (1886-1946). No doubt some of you had his ideas thrust down your throats at uni. He was a pioneer of the principle of full employment. Without boring you all rigid with economic principals it will suffice as shorthand to say he believed governments had a duty to provide and regulate employment, not markets. Those of you who are in business, now or then will know doubt understand easily what a fanciful principal full employment is. The world is now a global market place, like it or not. Employment is directly effected by markets. Governments can only look on and tinker at the edges. They are impudent in any influence or meaningful change. This means democratically elected governments of whatever colour. It’s just a fact of life we have to accept. Countries, like people need to make a living. All countries and companies need investment and capital from abroad. Then we come to France who has yet to realise the realities of economic life in the twenty-first century. A large section of the population, vested interests, unions and workers believe France stands alone against the tide of change. They still believe street protests mean something , as in the era of the Paris riots of 1968. The real result from protest is usually political fudge, flight of capital and continued stagnation. Ask yourself this question with hand on heart. As a capitalist investor would you risk investing in France? Rigid labour markets, state control which squeezes out incentive and initiatives. Taxation, corporate and personal beyond the acceptable norms. Without investment employment declines. Without a government prepared to stand up to the tyranny of labour unions and the mob, industrial anarchy results. We know that from the history of the UK. Thatcher turned the corner and made Britain prosper. France needs similar medicine, or, in my opinion the country will tumble into the abyss. I take no pleasure in that prospect. I love the country, people and culture. I just detest the system. The system did not make the country great, people did.

I should like to make it clear that I have no problem with the standard of life in France or how French people behave to anyone none French. For me that is always going to be subjective and irrelevant. People are the same anywhere you travel in this world. However political and social systems are not. Wealth creation in France is considered to be slightly suspect. The society has not moved on from the postwar boom of the fifties. Colonial domination remains an aspiration. A divine right to rule also still exists among the political elite and in the minds of the middle class and the functionaries. The class structure of France is maintained by the belief that workers and peasants need to be subsidised and preserved in aspic by a benevolent state. Anything less is thought as revolutionary and dangerous to the cultural values of the French. In short France is living in the past politically, economically and culturally. I agree very much with the wise words of 'Saligo Bay'. So many folk put their 'wet dreams' before the realites of economic independence. France is a tough environment to make a go of life unless your desire is to be spoon fed by the state. Personally I desire to be independent and keep what I work for and make my own decisions on how my income is spent. Governments will always make a balls of it. 

[quote user="Dicksmith"]Logan - I can only speak as I find. Did you leave the UK for similar reasons? [/quote] Au contraire cher Dick! The eighties were good to me in the UK. Moved to France and invested full of hope. Handed most of it to French socialist governments over the years. Now need to be back in UK to survive in a real market economy. France and business are like chalk is to cheese. The France of today is like the UK of the Wilson era in the seventies. Reform was painful then but desparately needed. Problem is France has no political will for meaningful change, running out of ideas and is living beyond it's means on borrowed time. Sound familiar? 

[quote user="Dicksmith"]Hmmm. Book about to go on sale, provocative articles appear in newspapers. Could these events be linked? [/quote] Slightly cynical Dick. I am leaving France because the country is in terminal decline. I have been warning those who desire a life in France to think again. The French are hurting and the pain will get worse before anything will change. The anti-british sentiments are increasing because of the difficulties the country is facing. It's not a place for a new life.

  It seems the French are getting restless and increasingly racist towards "Pervidious Albion". Check out this link:- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2092491,00.html

Was that 50.50 euros for two dogs, or just one?

Many thanks to all the contributors for your help.

I wonder, reading these posts from all you good folks trying to merge into the local French culture and customs. Did you do the same in the UK? Did you go regulary to the UK equivalent of the salle de fete? Did you attend the memorial parades and wreath laying ceremonies in your old home towns? Did you integrate into UK life in the same way as you recommend here. The reason I ask is because I smell ever so slightly in these posts the wiff of inverted social snobbery but I could be mistaken. The truth is that some folks simply do not want to integrate for their own reasons. Where is it written in stone that in order to live a contented happy life in another country you MUST integrate, you must learn the language et al. These things are personal choices and lifestyle decisions. They may work for you but not others. I agree that to be rid of social pests is a desirable thing. It's simple, just say NO! Nothing difficult about that is there?

I am returning to UK with my 2 Labs in May. I have done all the procedures which cost 450 euros in total. I need the inspection for ticks etc. prior to departing from Dunkerque. Can anyone tell me what Vets will charge for this inspection and the name of a vet in Dunkerque. Many thanks.

Try The Abbey, the old Abbey National Building Society who have branches in France. Failing that GE Money Bank. They have web sites in both English and French. Main stream French banks are fairly hopeless for anything out of the 'ordinary'. By that I mean none French or "anglo-saxon" ways of doing things. The companies I have mentioned think outside the box.

Thank you very much for that explanation which seems to work OK. What pleasure to be rid of Wanadoo Espace! 

Thanks for your reply but I am unsure how to remove wanadoo espace and then configure the modem which came with it to connect to the internet. I am happy with wanadoo ADSL and the modem but hate the espace software. It has a mind of it's own and  continually gives me irritating tasks I can do without.  So if I remove the software how then to a create a connection in Windows XP?

Is it possible to remove wanadoo espace and still connect to the internet using wanadoo's ADSL?

Try this link. I realise they may not be word/etiquette perfect but it's quick. www.freetranslation.com/

Expect to pay a notary between 1200 - 1500 euros depending on the amount of the mortgage. The lender will also charge a hefty 'frais de dossier'. A broker will also charge if you use one and their fees are about 1%. Switching mortgages in France has yet to catch on as in the UK. You can see why! 

What has been obviously missing from the current media reporting, except from very high level scientific institutions (which are easily ignored by most) is open discussion of the role that pigs play in the bird flu threat. The risk we are taking by permitting large scale pig raising operations, in which tens of thousands of pigs are closely confined, is substantial. Bird flu is transmissible (but requires fairly intense exposure to body fluids) from bird to people, but not yet from people to people. It's also fairly readily transmissible from birds to pigs. The problem is that it is within the pig that the bird flu virus can recombine genetically with other flu viruses that pigs harbour, and can thereby attain genetic capacity to be transmissible from human to human. It's amazing to me that commercial interests in factory style pig farming are powerful enough to keep this aspect of the threat off the radar screen. I would predict that the first human to human cases will be traced not to bird exposure, but to swine exposure. Pigs are often raised in areas where they come in contact with fowl, so it's easy for them to get bird flu, and then act as huge recombination vessels.  I'm afraid this is not very reassuring. I think the only glimmer of hope is that IF recombination to a human to human transmissible virus doesn't take place for a year or so, there may be adequate time for vaccine production. Of course, most countries don't have the public health infrastructure to vaccinate everyone, so there would still likely be large mortality rates in many areas. It really is a problem for everyone. It is odd how viruses tend to lose their virulence over time. There is the hope that by the time the bird flu mutates to become transmissible among humans, perhaps it will have become less deadly. It is not a case of IF the virus passes from human to human, more a case of when. The population should not continually seek reassurance from politicians we need to demand protective and decisive action now.

Stress, it's called hypochondria by another name. A national sport in France. Or that well known activity .....getting your monies worth from the mutuelle payments. The French worry about anything related to health issues. In fact they worry about everything under the sun. Then there's the fear factor. I suffered from fear living in France.............Fear of the power of chinless functionaires who break you on the wheel like a butterfly. Fear of paying out so much of your hard earned cash to support the state that you have nothing left to eat. It's fear which causes stress in the French population. Brits believe the balls they see on the telly because in the scheme of things the grass is always greener especially when its marketed by a film maker without scruple. Brits suffer from another kind of stress. They worry about the bloke next door doing better than he. They don't have the fear factor in Britain but stress is stress wherever you are.

[quote user="BJSLIV"] When the new method of collection came in M Sarkozy emphasised that it would be a more efficient way of collecting the money, as fewer civil servants would be needed. He emphasised that a number of those previously employed collecting the TV money would therefore be transfered to other activities.   [/quote] Moved not removed. French civil servants have jobs for life. Time serving pen pushers with social problems most of 'em.

What if the UK caravan is registered in UK to the same owner with a log book. Yes they issue them now. So correctly registered UK caravan being towed by French car registered to same person with same address. Insurance in France with UK plate on green card. Am I lawful? Articulated lorries registered in UK tow French trailors and vice versa. I often see them with more than 1 number plate on the trailor. I doubt your average French cop knows the answer to this either.

There is a mixture of chip & pin and the UK system of signature only with the mag. strip. It's a case of pot luck which retail outlet does which. There's no obvious pattern. One other factor I have noticed. In France they limit cash withdrawls per day or week to an agreed limit. Not so in Spain. My French card allows 300 euros a week. In Spain I have often passed that without a problem.

I empathise with you Val2. Peoples impressions are subjective. What is a mole hill of a problem in UK becomes a mountain in France. It depends on what experience folks have had of both countries. I speak as someone in that position and with hand on heart UK is a place for work and businesss. France is a place to eat well, sleep and bring up children with  values lost elsewhere. You have to make sacrifices depending on your point of view. It's called choice. The French system needs to be opened up to the private services sector and the state rolled back. Allowing people choice leads to inventiveness, incentive and a reduction in the tax burden. Freemarket economics have long won the arguments elsewhere. France remains the last bastion of the decayed principal that Governments are better at running things than markets.