Tourangelle

If I were you, I would put a note in with the cheque and also write a separate letter, my experience of the tax people here is they need to be told twice!

Susan, our heating is gas too, and I was planning on holding out til December as well, but I cracked today, it is so cold. I can't believe the price of gas, but at least the most recent price increases are going to brought in progressively.

If you have an ipod or similar mp3 player, then Europe 1 has started doing podcasts as of this week. www.europe1.fr

I know it is difficult to find TEFL work in the Loire, because living in Lyon and having worked in TEFL I have worked with people who came from St Etienne on a daily basis to work here. St Etienne has a university, have you tried contacting them? Also you could try the chamber of commerce. Unfortunately it is a little late in the year now, as everything has started up already vacancies may well be filled. I don't think there are many language schools in St Etienne (I don't know Roanne at all), but it might be worth sending off CVs. The problem with this sort of work, even in the larger cities, is that it can take a while to get a full time contract, if that is what you are after.

I have a recipe for a sort of cheese cake. The recipe is American and calls for light soft cheese, could anybody recommend something that I could find very easily in a French supermarket that would do the job?

No need to apologise for not understanding. I think my point was quite clear if you read Harley's original message "I have come to live in France and in doing so will endeavour to respect their laws, their people and the fact that they are a predominantly Catholic country. I will not try to impose my beliefs and religion on them." Let me rephrase: Whilest catholicism is the major religion, France is a secular country, the values are those of the republic. Respecting these republican values is preferable to taking into account the fact that more people are catholic than they are, say, hindu because these are values which can unite French people. I think it is very dangerous to start bringing religion into the French identity, as this is one of the Front National's favourtite approaches. They too would like to define France as a catholic country. I am in NO way suggesting that this is Harley's point of view, but I do think it is very important to emphasise the importance of republican values in French society. RobS I assume you don't mean to quote me, I didn't mention Birmingham, and if I were to it would be to say that from personal experience it is a great place to go at Christmas as it is the rest of the year.

[quote]My French teacher explained this to me, perhaps he has done the first of the two years and is holding off on the second is what he meant. Assisants can get work were they like as they are not technica...[/quote] Perhaps he is looking at primary school teaching, as I know about secondary schools from my own personal experience?

I think it is quite easy to find out what French people think about this issue. There are several radio stations that have discussed it at length on phone ins, some are better than others, I like Europe 1's at 18.30. I think if you listen to the BBC coverage, on the other hand, you don't get a good picture. Obviously they get the people who can speak English, but they have made it sound much worse and more widespread than it actually is. I am in the middle of a city, but I haven't seen anything! Minor disruption to the bus system, but that's about it!

[quote]The problem will be getting the teachers. There are loads of people at university (in France) taking degrees to teach. After they get their degree they need to do one final year extra to get their te...[/quote] Although I agree that going to teach in the inner cities is a scary prospect for new teachers, I am not sure what is being referred to in terms of "assistants" being able to chose their school? As far as I am aware no teacher choses the school they work in unless they work in the private schools or they are right at the end of their career. Also, to become a teacher in France takes two years after a degree, not one. People know what they are signing up to do when they take the competitive exam. Harley, I think you will find that France is a secular country, rather than a Catholic one, and rather than respecting people by respecting catholic beliefs, you are in fact applying a stereotype.

It was done for years, but now I thought it had been stopped. It is "la double peine", somebody who commits a crime, who is not French, has a prison sentence and then is expelled to their country of origin. I wouldn't describe my self as being the least bit right wing, but I think it is fair enough if you don't respect the law of the land, and you destroy schools and buses in the country you have chosen to live in, I don't think you should be allowed to stay. I certainly don't think it should apply to children though.

The CAPES is a two year qualification. The first year may have little to do with teaching ability, but it is a more open system in that you don't have to have a specific degree to take it, and the second year is the practical year, which can also be failed, so it is not like being good at the subject is enough. I don't think not wanting to do it is in anyway a failure to integrate, it is a totally depressing system, where many people who would potentially be good teachers fall at the first hurdle. People take it again and again and waste years trying to get the first year, which is very sad.

I have looked into it, but I think you'll still find that the problem is with French teachers being civil servants. EU legislation doesn't allow civil servants to transfer to other civil services of other member states. A PGCE, and I have asked the ministry of education here, is recognised as bac + 4. So the qualification is recognised to an extent, but here it takes at least a degree plus 2 more years to become a teacher. Unfortunately it is just part of the deal of moving to France.

No fairly sure it doesn't count, I think you have to have the actual equipment. My flat has a point to plug in the aerial too, but I don't have a TV and therefore don't pay.

[quote]How right you are! I feel a complete idiot now. I must have been thinking of my driving license.[/quote] Don't! French passports have the address on them, mistaking yourself for just shows how well you are adapting to life here!

I don't have an address on my passport, where is yours?

Sorry to hear that Baz. I think you are right, the psycological effect on many will be to choose somewhere else to go for short weekend breaks, and I think Paris in particular will be affected, because people do go there for winter breaks, as well as Nice and perhaps Toulouse. Lyon has not been affected in a major way by the riots so far. In the local paper it said 50 cars were burnt on Saturday night, which is five times more than the average weekend, but you wouldn't know anything was going on from being in the city centre. Certainly I think there is no danger in coming here for the time being, and the areas where there have been disturbances are not the places which attract tourists, so the foreign office does seems to be giving out reasonable advice, although obviously my comments are just based on my experience of one French city.

[quote]The strange thing is that I've got a BA (Hons) in Politics and History and a PGCE which they were willing to accept as the equivalent of BAC +5, although, this still doesn't entitle me to teach within...[/quote] I generally found that people had no problem accepting my qualifications when they wanted me for a job, but if I wanted to do something, then they tended try to round down! 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.

I've now ordered from them several times, and they are as good as everybody said!

hi Chris, nice that you are back. I had no problem at all getting the académie to agree that my degree is bac+3. They even apologised on the phone for not being able to consider it as a bac+4 because I had done a year abroad. What did she want to do with it.

I phoned them, but they said that they didn't have that sort of information, I must admitt I was rather surprised. They were very nice about it though!

[quote]Paramé, just along from Saint Malo has a fish and chip shop.Opened some 10 years ago or so and created and run in the initial years by a couple of people we now know well (they actually went for train...[/quote] I stand corrected and bow to your superiour knowledge!!!!! Now the question is, how do I get there from Lyon? A long way to go for a takeaway!!

We've decided to change our marriage contract and I have rung a couple of notaires and they have given me different figures as to the cost. They don't vary wildly, but they are not the same. Now surely they should be, as notaires' fees are supposed to be fixed by the governement, but how can I find out? I looked at notaires.fr, but there is nothing on there. I have also looked through previous postings, and it seems to vary from quite a lot through to the notaire having just thrown in the marriage contract with the fees for a house purchase. We are not planning to buy right now, (or any time in the immediate future)so that is not going to happen. I know that we will have to pay for an avocat as well, which is going to be at least 1000 euros, but how can find out how much a notaire should charge??

There are several nice creperies in Bayeux, but I am afraid I can't remember any names.

happy birthday mrs o, your restaurant sounds great!

I agree, it is so easy here to just repeat years. But taking the second part of SB's question, I have no idea. I mean people do university degrees and then can't get a job, and what employers seem to want is either a BTS, which is quite low level, but in something very specific, so bac+2, or loads more years, more like bac+5. I think high unemployment leads people to do more and more qualifications. Plus, the other day on the radio, I think it was France Culture, my OH was listening, I was only half paying attention, they were saying that parents now see the unis as a direct route to the ANPE, and also that foreign degrees in particular British ones and more valued. I assume that is if you are French and you manage to get a degree in the UK, and presumably also if you have very rich parents who can pay for it. But why don't lots of British students repeat the year, I think it is because they just get given a third! Then they could come to France and nobody will know what that means anyway. I don't know whether anybody has actually done this but it would be useful advice for university career centres to give out.