Want to move to france with poorly children

[Zig & Soz]

Myself and my husband want to move to France soon, we have 2 children, one aged 6 and one aged 2 who both suffer from Asthma and are heavily affected by the British winter.  For this reason we want to move to a warmer climate, somewhere in the lower french regions.

The questions we have are:

1)   Regions that would be most suitable (warm and dry)?

2)   French Medical Care? good/bad?

3)   Husband is a Project Manager with automotive/defence/utilities experience.  What would be the best location for work?

Any helpful suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks

Zig & Soz 

[plod]

I am afraid you seem to suffer from the common misconception that because France is further south than England it must be warmer in the winter. If you really want warm and dry you'll probably have to go to southern Spain or even Morocco. Here in the south-west it is not uncommon to get temperatures as low as -10. True it may be dry. Maybe on the south-east Mediterranean coast or Corsica you'll find it warmer but you will pay dearly for housing here. Sorry, I wouldn't feel competent enough to comment on the health matter suffice to say that the President has tightened up greatly on non-French immigrants below retirement age, so I suspect you would almost certainly have to take out probably costly health insurance.

I'm sorry to be pessimistic. Maybe others will post more positively.

[Sunday Driver]

Welcome to the forum

1)  As Plod says, France is not far enough south to offer the sort of weather advantage you are looking for.

2)  Medical care is generally very good.  Your healthcare costs will be funded through normal deductions from husband's salary.

3)  The best location for work will be where the jobs are.  I expect your husband will planning to do the usual job seeking research, ie contacting relevent recruitment agencies here, etc. 

 

[Catalpa]

There are areas of France where the winters are not necessarily warmer but they are certainly drier - which will probably help your childrens' asthma.

Not mentioned above - but as you didn't mention it either it is probably not a problem for you - is your husband's competence in the French language. Obviously, to get a good job at management level in a French company, his spoken French will need to be excellent. Some multinational companies do a lot of their business with English as the commercial language - but not internally. Project management is an area where influencing people involved in a project is an important component of the job - that's difficult if the manager doesn't speak the native language.

[Deimos]

Another aspect that may be relevant is how clean the air is.  I always thought that the air is cleaner where I now live (countryside) than where I lived in the UK (countryside).  I was told by a botanist friend when she visited that the air was really clean and she could tell immediately from the lichen growth everywhere - apparently it is very sensitive to air pollution.

Ian

[5-element]

I personally of at least two people who moved here because of asthma and who have noticed a great improvement. "Here" meaning south, we are just between east and west. Mediterranean climate which means the air is dry, as opposed to the west which is atlantic oceanic climate = damp and humid. As someone else says though, we do get very cold days in the winter, dry but cold, with night temperatures of minus 8 degrees C, sometimes even less. AND we get very very hot summers. Not much in the way of pollution where I live, which  is in the sticks, away from a city like Montpellier or a town like Beziers...

[5-element]

[quote user="5-element"]I personally know at least two people who moved here because of asthma and who have noticed a great improvement, i.e. asthma practically gone, one even stopped using her ventolin.

. "Here" meaning south, we are just between east and west. Mediterranean climate which means the air is dry, as opposed to the west which is atlantic oceanic climate = damp and humid. As someone else says though, we do get very cold days in the winter, dry but cold, with night temperatures of minus 8 degrees C, sometimes even less. AND we get very very hot summers. Not much in the way of pollution where I live, which  is in the sticks, away from a city like Montpellier or a town like Beziers...[/quote]

[Lou]

But also worth bearing in mind regarding pollution is that if you are in a very rural, agricultural area, the farmers do tend to spray the fields with all sorts of stuff - pesticides, fertiliser whatever.  Certainly they do round here and sometimes it can be quite bad even just driving past - and I know people who are affected by it who don't have asthma........

Lou

[raindog]

[quote user="Lou"]

But also worth bearing in mind regarding pollution is that if you are in a very rural, agricultural area, the farmers do tend to spray the fields with all sorts of stuff - pesticides, fertiliser whatever.  Certainly they do round here and sometimes it can be quite bad even just driving past - and I know people who are affected by it who don't have asthma........

Lou

[/quote]

There was a snippet on the news the other day about this.Apparently France consumes more pesticides and herbicides than any other european country.

[Sprogster]

As previous posters have advised, France is not suffuciently far south from the UK to have warmer winters and in fact many areas of France have colder average winter temperatures than southern areas of the UK that benefit from the influence of the gulf stream.

Even on the Cote D'Azur the winter months can be and often are cold and wet, with night time temperatures well below freezing resulting in icy roads.

Last but not least visible air pollution is an increasing problem in south eastern France during the summer months and when the air quality is poor the speed limits on the autoroutes are reduced and advisory warnings are given to the public.

[AnOther]

I can only comment on my personal experiences of UK v France in terms of a nasal compalint I have had for a number of years.

I don't have asthma or anything so definable but suffer a form of catarrh which means that at times I can be almost continually trying to clear my throat but to no effect.

Even though I lived in a rural area in the SE of UK where the air was pretty clean I find without exception that within a couple of days of being in France (dept 46) it clears up virtually completely and equally comes back within the same or a shorter time frame after setting foot back in UK, sometimes it's been back in hours !

Based on this and subject to you carefully picking your location, I would say that atmosphere in France would very likely be extremely beneficial to your kids health [:D]

Don't forget that even if France is detriorating in regard to air quality the rate of detrioration is unlikely to equal that of the UK which is fast approaching national gridlock, a situation which is inconceivable in the wide open areas of rural southern France.

[mossie]

I would like to add to the comments already made about your husband working here.  The previous poster is absolutely correct, he will need excellent french to work at this level.  My husband works in Paris as a project manager.  It is early days yet, he has only been there for about six months and even with his excellent french, he has still struggled.  Yes the language of the company is english (as it is an american company) but day to day in the office, and with french clients, they speak french.  Be under no illusion about how hard this is.  He says that one to one is OK but in the office situation, there is the daily banter in the office and the chit chat in the canteen, that is when it gets really difficult to keep up when a group of people are all talking together.  My husband comes home at the weekend tired and very stressed (although he also finds it very interesting).  He is coping not only with a new job, some very difficult clients but also using a foreign language day in, day out, having to negotiate the finer details of contracts and sorting out constant problems with projects.  You have to be very sure of your abilities to take all this on.