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I did go down the Pole d'Emploi Route


Millie
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Having posted on here last, with a very favourable and positive result of my initial visit to the Pole d'Emploi, I was referred for a four day 'targeting and finding work course', and was eager to begin this.  I have a, possibly misguided, faith in the rumbling machine of annoymous government systems, and felt that I might be included and encouraged and feel at one with my fellow job seekers.  My life here in France has, after all, been punctuated by a thousand acts of random kindness. 

 

The first day, was OK, we had various discussions on the 'hidden' job market etc., and I thought all was well.  I've lived here a long time, my understanding of French and vocabulary is fast and fairly vast.  I had to ask what the word 'tamalou' was, to much amusement, but otherwise I understood all and took part in all of the excercises.  I was asked pretty damned quick during a talk on 'rights' if I was claiming the 'chomage', and explained that I wasn't  because although I pay cotisisations on my husbands salary for my son and I, my husband is Canadian and therefore not covered by the system, and I haven't actually had a salary here myself. So am not therefore relieving the French government of a sou. 

 

I thought I was doing quite well, the advisor was pleasant. But... Day two, we had a different advisor, who, asked if I was a foreigner and then proceeded to make me the butt of every negative remark, joke and sneer with a the zeal of a schoolyard bully.  To my horror after a short while of quiet sniggering the other 14 started to join in. I was called geneé and everybody laughed when it was said, and someone did a football chant of 'France pour la Francaise' which was taken up by another couple of people.  I stuck it out and finished the course, all four wretched days of it.

 

I chatted to my fellow students in the coffee breaks, and they made it evident that this was 'nothing personal' but that I should not be competing for French jobs, and that I'm simply Not French.  At the end I was given a Bilan, that stated I had integrated and taken part in all the course, but that I 'have an English accent which will hamper communication with others'

 

I am going back next week to a CV workshop, and will complain about the treatment I received before.  I discussed it with a couple of French friends and they were most embarassed, but said that they weren't too astonished because they'd heard similar stories, though not involving English immigrants.  I am evidently naieve, but I have never before experienced this sort of behavior, mercifully.  It's sort of swayed my thinking. It had never occurred to me that I was disliked 'just' because I'm English.

 

I am just feeling a bit disheartened, and perhaps a bit got at. I will pick myself up and hurl myself back into this fray.  However, I do think I have a point in being somewhat cross.  I have never spoken a word of English with any French resident (except when requested for language learning) in the ten years I have lived here.  I have tried so hard to integrate at times I feared I would implode.  I shall not let this deter me, but must say I am losing some of my Mary Poppins veneer. 

 

Have I just encountered a 'one off' horrid person and sheeplike followers?  Now I've stuck my head above the parapet am I likely to have this experience more often?  I am not a whimp, but this really was unnecessary unpleasantness for no good reason. 
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I'm sorry you came up against this issue. I'm afraid it is very common, in even in big, multinational companies. As your colleagues said, it's not personal, and not aimed at you specifically. They don't even see it as anything wrong. I just ignore it, pretend it never occurred, and carry on regardless. My German colleagues get it as well. They'll do the same if you're black, jewish, asian, whatever.

My wife gets really p*ssed off when people make snide comments behind our backs when we speak English between us, or if they spot the slight accent she has after years of living abroad, and make, what they think, are funny jokes. Guaranteed to get the perp a mouthful of French words I don't understand. I just ignore it.

Don't let it put you off. You will develop a think skin!

 

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It's probably the worst situation for this sort of thing too as your fellow attendees are all, ipso facto, without work, and  the poor immigrant gets the blame for everything.  The UK's the same - how bloomin' often do you hear the boring old tirade against refugees and European incomers being responsible for all Britain's economic ills?  Velcorin is quite right, imo.  It's tough but you have to just hang in there, which you seem to be doing.  Don't let the b*st*rds grind you down!
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Thank you so much, for your positive responses.  You know when you sort of sit and think to yourself 'oh, get a grip woman'? - well I did, and I realised I was still cross.  But I just needed to get it out and vent it and see if anybody else agreed.  You did - I realised that life sucks, but you just get on with it - but I know I'm not there all on my own!  Onwards and upwards - with many thanks!
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Oh, and you might just mention the quarter of a million (at least, see this - admittedly old but I doubt it's gone down much - article http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/23/immigration.france ) French people in the UK taking jobs from Brits.   Of course I don't subscribe to this theory but it is a statistic that usually shuts these ignoramuses (ignorami?) up.

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Millie,

Over the many years (it seems ) I was job hunting (now thankfully over as I'm retired), I spent many times wondering why I'd bothered.  It was obvious that after the age of 40 I was more experienced and more capable than those seeking to fill posts, and this led to many occasions when I was not successful, even though a well qualified and appropriate candidate.  Even in my last job before retirement the boss did say he didn't want to employ me because he didn't think I'd stay because he thought I'd find the work too simple.  In fact there was very much to do, and also ( in fact)  they got rid of me before I was ready by making me redundant!!  So much for me not staying !!

However, the point of all this is, that given what you have described, it sounds to me like they thought you threatened them, ie you were better than they were and so would get the jobs before they did.  I have seen this so many times.  Keep up your pecker - it is obvious you have the language skills (which is what fails most ex-pats) and you you have the courage and gumption to get something.  Forget them, they will possibly never, ever, be employable, but you sound as though you could well be...... and you can use it as an example if they ever ask difficult questions about how you cope when confronted with unhelpful colleagues, etc....... Bon courage!

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Hi I am so sorry but tough upper lip and all of that. See it through.

I get gently chided on being over here and being English! Here a comment and for nothing whatsoever but to shut up these guys and that is I am not English. They then go all over the world to try to find out where I come from. Sometimes they get it right mostly not and I am not from Tibet. I then chide them on their knowledge of the world and they walk away.

At this stage I say to them (and with Cooperlola I do not think this way) in Londres we have over 300000 French people well in excess of our being in France. Why do they go there? Then I stick it into them but gently.
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A young Nepalese guy of my acquaintance, who was studying in France (Nantes and Paris), was telling me how much racism he encountered there - people saying what was a black man doing on the course, etc.   Reading the OP, it sounds horribly similar.

He has now married a French girl, and moved to the far-flung, more ethnic-friendly departement of La Reunion.

It's a good point made earlier, though, about what the attitudes by job-seekers in the UK would be on similar courses towards people from, say, Eastern Europe.  (Though one would hope that any antipathy would not be instigated by the *teacher*.)

Angela

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Oh, I cannot express how your comments have made me feel better.  Stupid I know, but for the last couple of days, I have really been 'off' France, and yet I know they aren't all like this.  I have some really nice, and supportive, French friends here.  I think it's just that I also have a couple of young friends who have have mixed parentage (Madagascan/French) and even with lots of good academics they have experienced all sort of horridness with finding work.  I then wonder for my poor kid, who's ten with an English mum and Canadian dad, but I realise that already, he is far tougher than lots of his friends, and just says he ignores the nastiness.  Damn it, he was born here, why should he be seen as different. 

I have an English girlfriend here, who is married to a French man, and she refuses to speak a word of French here, as she says she feels so got at (speaks it at home with her husband, and kids but not 'au public' so to speak - she did speak for five years and then just decided she'd had enough).  I don't think this is quite the way to go, although I can understand her feelings.  In a couple of days I shall be in chieftan tank mode and plough through their objections with the nicest of smiles, whilst deftly countering any asides with my evidently dreadful English accented French!  This is a battle I am going to win!  I really feel this to be my own personal Waterloo.  If I don't find work at something, I shall for ever feel I've failed, and that can't happen.

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Well done Millie, keep at it!

As others have said there are people all over that feel threatened by 'strangers' taking jobs etc.  I worked  in France for a lovely french employer who welcomed Brits because of their work ethic, now as Brits complain over here about Polish etc taking low wages, the French used to have a go at me for being very flexible with my employer. 

I used to work when she needed me and not when she didn't, I took holidays when it was quiet all for the good of this very tiny business, the people that made these comments were supposed friends of my boss and they could not understand why I would work this way, didnt get the fact that if she failed then we had no job and so supporting/workiung for a business can mean putting them first but ultimatley we all gain!  The french idea about relationships with employers is at odds with my own and many others who've worked in fledging businesses.

So you've encountered some people who have fears that you could do a better job, nothing more, go out and show them!!

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A refreshing thread (although painful for the OP) which shows the Xenephobia endemic in France.

Those who speak glibly of being 'integrated' have clearly never tried to compete for a job here.

As long as you are the fat wallet who pays over the odds for  houses and can afford expensive restaurants we are tolerated.

But once we start to threaten by applying for jobs.....

Imagine how much worse it is for non-Europeans.

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[quote user="NormanH"]As long as you are the fat wallet who pays over the odds for  houses and can afford expensive restaurants we are tolerated.
[/quote]

I very quickly went from the above to being treated like someone dark skinned once people realised that I didnt have a fat wallet, wasnt a pigeon and had beat many locals to snapping up my place from the liquidator at a bargain price, some had been waiting many years.

It is the last that seems to engender the most bitterness towards me albeit expressed in racist terms.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'd just like to point out that it is not always like that. I have been treated extremely well by the Pole Emploi, as has been my husband when he used them. I found work practically straight away and the Pole Emploi told me how to apply for a back to work travel grant as I had taken a job so far away - all of 35km!

My husband has had nothing but help from the Pole Emploi and the Chambre de Metiers and is now firmly established running his own business.

I have also been very sucessful in acquiring jobs, once a speculative letter, one I knocked on the door and asked for (and got) and my current job I applied for, from a newspaper advert.

However, what all my jobs have had in common, is that I have taken a much lower level of job than I would have if I was in an English speaking country. My spoken French is fairly fluent but my written French is poor and that is what is holding me back, not xenophobic attitudes. When you can complete on an equal footing with the local people, in every way and still not get a job, then I think you can imply that they are treating you differently due to your nationality. I don't live in a major tourist centre either, I live in Burgundy which has one of the highest levels of unemployment, although to be fair, it doesn't have high levels of foreigners either.

Millie, if you speak French, have the right attitudes and are willing to do anything - and I mean anything, you will find a job. Then once you start, the only way is up.
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[quote user="Ladoix"]I'd just like to point out that it is not always like that. I have been treated extremely well by the Pole Emploi, as has been my husband when he used them. I found work practically straight away and the Pole Emploi told me how to apply for a back to work travel grant as I had taken a job so far away - all of 35km!

My husband has had nothing but help from the Pole Emploi and the Chambre de Metiers and is now firmly established running his own business.

I have also been very sucessful in acquiring jobs, once a speculative letter, one I knocked on the door and asked for (and got) and my current job I applied for, from a newspaper advert.

However, what all my jobs have had in common, is that I have taken a much lower level of job than I would have if I was in an English speaking country. My spoken French is fairly fluent but my written French is poor and that is what is holding me back, not xenophobic attitudes. When you can complete on an equal footing with the local people, in every way and still not get a job, then I think you can imply that they are treating you differently due to your nationality. I don't live in a major tourist centre either, I live in Burgundy which has one of the highest levels of unemployment, although to be fair, it doesn't have high levels of foreigners either.

Millie, if you speak French, have the right attitudes and are willing to do anything - and I mean anything, you will find a job. Then once you start, the only way is up.[/quote]

My spoken French is fairly fluent but my written French is poor

Mine isn't

I can and didn't except like you at a greatly inferior pay scale.

The only 'help' I had from the ANPE (Now Pole Emploi) was to be sent on a compulsory course on how to write a CV.

My previous job was training young people how to write CVs.[:)]

How do you know that is isn't xenophobic attitudes that are holding you back?

For example why do wine producers  or Restaurants prefer to have their web sites translated into English  by French people who are obviously not native speakers of English, with the laughable results one sometimes sees?

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The children of a friend of ours, although English by birth, who have gone through the French school system-to listen to them and speak to them, you would believe them French. However, once into the job market, the elder daughter has had mega problems, because as she says, once they see your CV and see you were born in England, that is it, interview terminated - also friends in our village, she is from Belgium, he from France, also say the same - he could not get a job in Belgium, and now they are back here, she can not get a job in France!!!!
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I am so glad to hear that the Pole d'Emploi in Burgundy is better.  I know it's an area of high unemployment, so it's great to hear that some Brits do succeed.  The initial people at the Pole d'Emploi were great, really nice, and shocked when I told them what had occurred on their course.  Maybe the course administrator was just a horrid hag from hell who didn't like the look of me.  However, having read the replies on here, I was sadly not too surprised.  Some years ago my sister tried to work here, teaching English - bearing in mind she has two MAs, one in English Literature, and one in Linguistics and is a qualified teacher with oodles of experience, she thought she might find work.  She was told several times that French people are better at teaching English, and this seemed to be an accepted given. I just somehow figured that time had moved on, and things may have changed. 

I will find work - the course at the Pole d'Emploi made me realise just how horribly capable I am!  So there was a positive outcome!  My main fear is that having read some of the responses, I worry for my son.  He has always been teased at school about having foreign parents, but I now realise that these teasings may be more than just kids being horrid. 

I have determined that by Christmas I shall be an employed and fully functioning worker at something or another, even if I have to build my own factory and production line, in order to give myself a job pushing a button!  The only question now is whether or not I want to be accepted as part of a society, that I had previously thought I was accepted into?

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I had a student (here in the UK) who had, like a lot of younger French people, come to the UK to work. She had (probably still has) a good job in the marketing department of the UK subsidiary of a US company.

I asked her why she'd come here to the UK to work. Her explanation was that she simply couldn't find work in France. French-born, French-educated......but she explained that she would phone companies who had advertised vacancies and would be given lots of positive vibes, even, on occasions, interviews would be arranged. And then she'd have to give her name. Well, her parents are Moroccan. Usually the vacancy would miraculously be filled.

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I saw a program on that very issue recently, where the children of immigrant parents or even grandparents, but born and bred in France had decided to change their names to make them ( their names) more French and it did help them in the job market.

There is the option to change both the first and surname for people wishing to gain French nationality, it would be interesting to know how many people opt to do that.

 

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We know several people locally whose children have found work in UK. The parents regret they've had to go there, but know it's made sense. These are all local families, born, bred and educated here, with good qualifications. They don't have the burden of non-French names either.
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The chef I had in the restaraunt this season was an arab. However, he went by another name (not legally changed, he just used it socially, all his contracts etc were in his real name) He told me he was forced to do this as very few people would want an arab preparing their food.

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