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tmto

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Everything posted by tmto

  1. What a fascinating thread! The reason I stay in France is that I simply wouldn't want to live elsewhere. I live in Marseille, the biggest city in France (in terms of area), yet some parts still within the city limits are in beautiful areas of countryside (hills and some of the calanques), the city centre is affordable to live in without having to spend a fortune in rent like in Paris or London, and there are plenty of things to do here (as live music was mentioned, there is plenty of that around, bars, jazz clubs, small concert venues etc). Also many culural events and some interesting museums (the maritime museum is a little disappointing though, for a city that has been a major Mediterranean port for the past 2,600 years). I have to admit that I am very picky about food which is another reason I would not live outside of France (with the exception of Italy). I am not one of those who constantly marvels about how great French food is, rather I think that it's food from around the world that is pretty sub-par, at least to my palate. And finally I am very reluctant to embrace change which is as good a reason as any to remain where I am!    
  2. [quote user="tj"]another example of the french lack of business skills.  [/quote] No, it's an example of renting laws being stacked in favour of the tennant rather than the owner - resulting in owners being very careful to whom they choose to rent out to (hence the dossiers, time etc).
  3. I know that certain Corsican and Sardinian cheeses are meant to be eaten only when riddled with maggots. Does anyone know which cheeses they are?
  4. [quote user="Dick Smith"]To accept it gives the institution carte blanche to act in any way it wishes. [/quote] Yes but there are people running those institutions who make those decisions. Does it not make more sense to prosecute them? Or obtain money from the institution when it's behind run by people one or two generations later?
  5. Back to the SNCF issue, the more I think about it the less I am convinced that compensation is a good idea. Otherwise what's to stop the descendents of those who perished on the Titanic from sueing present-day Cunard over the excessive speed of the liner in icy waters, insufficient life boats and unfair evacuation policy regarding the 3rd class passengers? (Cunard merged with the White Star Line - owners of the Titanic -in the 1930s). How about sueing Lloyd's for underwriting slave-trading ships, which they are very likely to have done as they were founded long before slavery was abolished in Britain. There has to be a point where a generation should not have to pay (financially) for the misdeeds of previous ones.
  6. The people who worked for SNCF back then are by now mostly deceased - therefore if SNCF  has to pay out a large amount of money to a group of individuals, some way or another that cost will be met by people who have nothing to do with all of this (passengers, and  maybe the State - does it still subsidise SNCF to some extent? In others words us). This is the trouble when sueing organisations that bear little ressemblance to what they were decades ago - the people who are penalised are not those who were guilty of anything. This seems like a cynical attempt to make a large amount of money on the back of a terrible atrocity.
  7. I've always liked London, although would probably struggle to be able to afford anything within reasonable commuting distance let alone London itself. I question the value of comparing a capital city to an entire other country though: it would be rather like comparing the relative merits of Hyde Park and the Lake District.
  8. Would it not make more sense to sue the people who actually set up these camps and planned out all these atrocities in the first place? Or I am missing out on something here?
  9. On the subject of the difficulty of learning a new language at 16, while it's true that a teenager will not become as easily fluent as a younger child in as short a period of time, it's not by all means impossible. If he's motivated and keen to learn it, then why not?
  10. tmto

    Dogs on the beach

    Is it possible for a dog to involuntarily jump into the sea and get knackered and thrown about by the waves? Like some kind of Pavlovian response to a ball being thrown?
  11. Yes, the whole country, more or less. And a Sunday in August is even more impressive to behold than during the rest of the year - last Sunday in Marseille it was like being in a ghost town, a city of 800,000 inhabitants reduced to a sleepy village and empty streets!
  12. [quote user="Deimos"] Muscle growth takes a bit longer than a pill or two and a wait overnight. [/quote] He was found to have an unually high level of testosterone, which would not cause muscle growth overnight but would effectively speed up recuperation, thus making him less tired than everybody else the next day. At least this is what a doctor was saying on the news yesterday.
  13. If the title of this thread is correct, we can infer that all of us who have participated in it are French, as it has been construed by some to be rude, and by others to be boring!
  14. Interesting points raised above: but I wonder, why is it always the French who are mocked about their wartime occupation, and not the Poles, the Dutch, the Danish, the Belgians, the Greeks, the Channel Islanders... you get the idea. The French are not the only nation to have capitulated so quickly, or to have collaborated, yet we seem to save most of our venom for them. Historic Anglo-French hatred perhaps?
  15. The UK should take similar steps, instead of tolerating people who blatantly hate the country they have been given the right to reside in.
  16. A good way of avoiding having to wade through huge amounts of bureaucracy and be smothered by taxes is to be employed rather than self-employed, so that the answer to "Does anyone actually make any money?is it worth it?" would be yes. Although oddly enough many people seem to discount that option, prefering business schemes, some of which often look quite shaky. Granted, unemployment is high is France but it is far from impossible to get a good job. And contrary to popluar belief on these forums, British qualifications are recognised in France, depending of course on the sector. Being able to speak the language is almost always necessary, but then I'd have thought it would be in order to run a successful business too.
  17. One reason why the RC church has a dwindling influence in France is the natural suspicion that the French have had towards religion since the Revolution. Before 1789 the French political system was based on 3 chambers: the aristocracy, the clergy, and the tiers-etat, all with equal political weighting. This meant that the clergy and the aristocracy, who had many shared interests, often sided together outnumbering the tiers-etat 2 to 1 even though the tiers-etat represented the vast majority of the population - hardly a fair or democratic system. The church in France was also extremely wealthy at a time when the many people were going hungry, which didn't add to its popularity. Of course it's all a lot more complicated than that and there are many other factors involved but the RC church's dominance in French politics up until that time (for example, the King used religion to assert his authority and his "divine right" to absolutism) presumably has something to do with the strict separation between religion and state that we have today, and why the French are not a particularly religious bunch compared to other nations which may not have had cause to have such a grudge against the clergy.    
  18. There is often information about recent archeological discoveries in local newspapers. Also every time I have been to Lyon I've noticed something new has been discovered - not long ago they found 3 Roman barges (remarkably well preserved) in the silt in the banks of the Rhone. And recently here in Marseille they discovered the earliest Christian church ever to be found in France (this was while digging up one of the city's busiest arteries to make way for a new tramway system). So based on what I've seen, reading local newspapers and wandering around towns and cities would be my advice!
  19. I fail to see why it's rude for Welsh people to speak Welsh in Wales, regardless of whose presence they are in.
  20. [quote user="Dick Smith"]The men who fought and died in WW1 and WW2 did so for reasons completely other than our 'right' to live in France, and I think that to use them in such an argument is demeaning and quite likely the sort of crassness which leads to resentment. [/quote] I agree, considering that the French lost almost 1.4 million men in WW1 (excluding civilian deaths), pointing them to cemetaries could be construed as being slightly patronizing.
  21. [quote user="Teamedup"] That is because you and I listen to french people Saligo and really, what would they know anyway. Ofcourse them 'rale'ing' isn't being negative, it is just they being charmingly french. [/quote] I listen to French people too, in fact having been here since I was eleven years old I haven't had much choice! French peoples' opinions on the economy vary greatly, it all depends on who you listen to and where they are heading in their lives - there are 20-somethings (my generation) with whom I work who certainly aren't complaining about unemployment! Many of us are facing the future with confidence and have already started building up our careers, which is why all this talk of a moribund economy that is heading nowhere is at odds with those young people who work in (say) large multinational companies, many of them French-owned, that are perfectly at ease competing in a global economy. On the other hand I have some friends who have indeed struggled to find employment despite having good qualifications. That's why I find such statistics interesting and useful, more so than just listening to what people around me are saying about the economy. General opinions are useful in their own way, but certainly don't paint an accurate picture of the environment that we're in, mainly because they can be so contradictory.
  22. I find the statistics that Most Holy has provided very interesting, more importantly they appear to be easily verifiable. Saligo Bay, while it's true that statistics can be made to point towards one or another point of view depending on what the organisation who comissioned them may be wanting to tell us, at least they can provide a solid base from which to compare, rather than friends' and neighbours' opinions on the matter (be they French or not), and even one's own general perceptions. It's then a matter of verifying the statistics, and the reputabilty of their source, and making an informed opinion based on that. I don't think statistics can be so easily dismissed like that, it all depends on the source.  
  23. Yes, if you get a promotion your pay goes up accordingly
  24. [quote user="Teamedup"] if you think 25 years is OK before one approaches full salary[/quote] No, the full salary is the one you start up with when you join the company, and ancienneté means you can get it increased the longer you work. You seem to be complaining about something which has enabled your husband to double his salary over the years.  
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