My husband works for Airbus in Toulouse. There are hundreds of British, German and Spanish families in Toulouse working on various projects and in the eight years we have been here we have we have never experienced any bad feeling towards us. I think the French understand that Airbus is a partnership between the different coutries and French jobs aren't being taken by foreign workers they are doing their own part of the programme but in France! The employees having trouble within Airbus at the moment are the Germans. Last year an emergency plan was put in place to safegaurd the future of Airbus in these difficult times. Each country within Airbus had to make radical cutbacks which involved sites being closed down and major job losses. My understanding is that while England, France and Spain have carried out the closures required Germany has not which has caused a lot of bad feeling amongst the manual workers towards their German colleagues. Airbus owns the International School of Toulouse, it was opened so that English speaking Airbus workers could be more mobile.There are a lot of English families in the area that tend to stick together and not get very involved in the French community but their reasons for moving here aren't the same as the average English family living in France. You also get many families who choose to put their children into French schools and become very integrated in the local community. I think on the whole the Toulouse area welcomes the foreign Airbus employees with open arms.
