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Finding a job in France


Frances
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We are moving to the Aveyron, near Villefranche de rouergue in the spring.  I am a staff nurse and shall be seeking employment either in the public or private sector.  My French is limited but I am learning at the moment.  Does anyone know of any job opportunities or advice on how to find employment in this area. 
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when i went to anpe and asked for a job the lady said ive got one for you..............go away and learn the language as you are unemployable without it!

seriously though the only employment a non fluent person is likely to get is in the most menial sections imagine the sort of jobs non english speaking people get in the uk.

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As your profession in within the health and social care field you will have to be 'state registered' to practice here in France, as in the UK (although you can no longer say 'state registered' there) Perhaps your best route will be to approach your regional DDASS (Direction Departmentale des Affaires Sanitaire et Sociales).  They will advise you of the particular requirements to validate your diplomas. 

En gros, they will want

  • your request, outlining personal details - your full name, address, telephone number - where you obtained your qualification and your profession. 

  • Passport (copy)

  • Copies of your diploma certificates

  • Copy of your professional registration to practice in the UK (if that was where it was awarded) conforming to directives '89/48/CEE du 21.12.1998 et 92/51/CEE du 18.06.1992.

  • Detailed breakdown of your study programmes (how many hours in each area study area, how many years and content of your placements throughout your training)

  • References from employers

  • Translation of these documents by a 'traducteur assermente' (not just any translater!!)

In terms of finding work you will need to be able to communicate effectively, I suggest you continue learning French whilst getting state registration.  Once here you could perhaps look for care work or maybe in a nursing home whilst you get your French up to par. 

Another route may be to register as unemployed via the ASSIDIC/ANPE, approach your French colleagues in your local hospitals to request they offer you a placement (usually no more than two weeks). The ANPE will provide the insurance cover you need for this! It will offer you a chance to try out/improve your French and see how things work here. 

I hope others will be able to provide further information within the forum, if you run into any particular issues you could PM me.  Good luck with your move.

Best wishes  

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An English neighbour of mine came over here 18 months ago with a TEFL (teaching English as a Foreign Language) qualification.  She felt that she had enough money to live here for a year before seeking work and therefore enough time to get reasonably fluent in French before beginning to apply for jobs.  She had never learnt a language before and had pretty much zero French.  She spends a  minimum of 2 hours per day on private study; she has befriended two old ladies whom she visits once a week to chat to; she has a French friend who was an English teacher whom she has conversation with once a week, she attends a French class at the local university for two hours a week, but still she does not feel confident enough to begin to seek work.  Personally, I think she is probably better than she believes but I quote this simply as an object lesson.  Beware - don't imagine that a few months living here will give you a condfident enough grasp of the language to allow you to compete for a job with native French speakers.  Because that is the reallity.  If you were an employer - out of two people equally qualified, would you pick the one you could understand or the one you couldn't?

Bon courage!

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i agree with the above, been here two years and could speak some french before i arrived. going by people we know here now i would say that if you are an adult it is unlikely that you would become fluent until you have been here for about 4 years and then  you would need to be working with french speakers full time. As i dont work with french speakers but do have french friends and propably speak some every day i reckon on being fluent in about 8 years!!!

mind you i have a relative who has lived here for 5 years and he hardly speaks a word of french and someone i know has no french at all after 15 years in france!

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 All that's been said is undoubtably true but don't lose heart. I have friends who have picked up the language very quickly and whilst they may not have perfect grammar and spelling are very well able to make themselves understood. Hopefully you're one of the lucky ones who picks up langauges - wish I was.

I'm assuming you're not moving here for career progression so maybe starting at the bottom (no pun intended nurse) won't be so bad. As Eric Idle says "Always look on thebright side of life" [Www]

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Hang on - it's nice to encourage people, but lets be realistic. Would you trust someone with a weak grasp of the language to read and understand someone's medical notes and care instructions? To understand what a distressed old lady says to them when she needs something? To explain bad news to a relative?

I don't think you need to be 'ok' in French for that, you need to be bilingual.

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I actually live in the Villefranche area and I know someone who is a nurse who speaks little French.  The only employment she has been able to get via the ANPE is seasonal washing up in a hotel!!  As Dick says if I was ill I'd want the nurse to be able to speak to me and I'm sure most French people feel the same.

However, on a more encouraging note I really think there might be room here for a private nurse/carer in the ex-pat community.  There are increasingly older people who came here 10/15 years ago, never bothered to learn the language, and when they have problems which require nursing care find themselves isolated as they cannot find someone who speaks English to help them.   I don't know the legalities of setting up, but sure ANPE could advise.  If you wanted to go this route an ad in one of the English newspapers such as The Connection might bring forth something.

Good luck

Maggi

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Maggi, I think your suggestion's a possibility, but I would wonder whether anyone in the situation you describe wouldn't still be looking for someone who, although they might be English, could communicate not only with them as the "patient" but as an interface between them and the medical staff of whom they may have need in France. Even if you're an English-speaking nurse or carer in this situation, you won't overcome the need for French to be spoken if you yourself don't understand what's being said about the medical condition or treatment of those in your care.................Sorry, not being negative on purpose, just realistic.
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I think Betty is absolutely right. Language skills - and being set up legally and officially yourself - are even more important in 'intermediary' type roles dealing with the English-speaking community than in the 'real' world. We see too many people offering services and advice who do not have the knowledge required or the abilities to find out. I'm thinking about other things besides nursing, but can see it would be even more important there.
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A point well made, and one worthy of note for anybody employing non-French speaking artisans to do work for you over here also.  Do the people you're employing understand the regulations properly, can they negotiate the best deals for you etc?  Will you get the correct guarantees when they've finished?

I can see the comfort of having and English speaking nurse over here if you need long-term care, but I would like to know for sure that they were reporting correctly to my doctor!

Anybody asking what qualifications they need over here for any job - top of the list? - French language skills - and good ones!

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Quite agree - however my doctor, for example, speaks pretty good English but English patients who need care outside his surgery will not find an English speaking nurse.  I thought perhaps the op could liaise with someone like that to care for a patient in their own home. 

I really think that French is essential, but people can learn.  My own husband spoke no French on arrival and is now working for local French artisan.  Telling it like it is (and I do do that) is all very well but feel we have to offer the odd positive suggestion as well.

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Yes, I quite agree. If I can use Mrs Will as an example, she came to France 4-5 years ago with A-level French plus a love of the country, a desire to learn, and. most important, a salaried job in an estate agents' office. Her French is now of the standard that a lot of people do not think she is English (though they recognise she is not native French), and can liaise fully with notaires and other French professionals, translating at signatures, compiling compromis etc - everything a French agent immobilier does. In fact most of the time she runs the whole business (on the SMIC but that's another issue altogether). It has been a lot of hard work for her though.

Compare her with a lot of the other English in estate agencies, hand-holding agencies etc, who do not have the same level of knowledge and language skills, it is no wonder that so many people get bad advice and get into trouble in France.

 

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Yes, I appolgise, I do sound a bit negative on reflection.  Many people on this forum and elsewhere have done it, so I would never say anything but "go for it" - just do so with some foresight and lots of preparation and with blinkers firmly off.  Then there's no reason why you shouldn't get what you want out of French life.
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I don't think you are negative at all. There is a big difference between just spreading doom and gloom and saying something honest about how things are. Anybody who is keen and serious about moving to France will not be discouraged, just file it away as another thing on the 'to do' list. But if comments like yours make the 'let's go to France because it's cheap and it must be easy to make a living' brigade think twice, you will have done everybody a favour - including them.
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I posted because I did think the thread was going down the doom and gloom route, the OP was on post 1 for somebody not offensive sake.

I'd like to think Frances accepts to be anywhere close to equivalent workwise they will need fluent French, equally I've no doubt there are people thinking this French lark is easy and deserve to be put off coming.

Basically I'd rather be positive where possible and assume people aren't after something for nothing - if they are they'll fail anyway.

 

 

As an aside Wifey was a nurse in the UK and could tell a few stories about professionals without good English.

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[quote user="Mister Fluffy"][quote user="Angelweb"]

I posted because I did think the thread was going down the doom and gloom route, the OP was on post 1 for somebody not offensive sake.

[/quote]

Is a translation available?
[/quote]

 

Sorry about that, I got as far as "for f" and thought that wasn't appropriate for the forum then went to for God's sake and worried about the policitically correct police and settled for "somebody not offensive".

 

As for wifey - I may well get killed too.

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On the other hand it is possible to get a good job in France with a multinational company that uses English as it's business language - I know this is trrue because I start in 4 weeks time with my new company. My french is basic - fine for holidays, but having originally trained as a nurse / midwife I moved into clinical research and will now be working managing trials from my home in France, travlling to our offices in Paris as needed, and although some of time I'll need French so am studying hard to improve - most of the time I'll be using English.

Wifey could be a term of endearment .....a bit like hubby

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[quote user="littlemouse"]I seem to remember that last year  french hospitals were recruiting spanish and portugeuse nurses and giving them french lessons at the same time.Which leads me to understand that french wasn't essential.[/quote]

This was a special programme started around 2002/3 to fill the shortages and targeted Spanish nurses. The thing to point out is that it’s GOVT run and does not involve individual hospitals going out to employ foreign nationals without the relevant linguistic competence.  The French system is NOT that flexible.

Apparently, the scheme has been successful so there must be a lot of info on it on the net.  However, from what I remember reading, the recruitment is targeted and the nurses do not necessarily have a choice as to where they will work (perhaps that has changed).  The recruits seemed to be housed by the hospitals etc in the same way as foreign nurses recruited into the NHS may be.  So, if the original poster has a house in the Aveyron and is offered a job in Manche, not sure how useful that will be.

In General, the French are not as tolerant of non-French speakers as the Brits in the area of employment or anywhere else for that matter.  Within the work arena, it’s even worse. Let’s not forget that even for simple jobs within the French civil service, e.g the post office, there are ‘concours’ national tests and I cannot see how someone who doesn’t speak and write French fluently will get a look-in.

In Britain you will come across people in all types of professions with relatively low linguistic competence in spoken English but you will rarely find that in France outside of the ‘Artisanat’ sector. The exception, as EJC has pointed out, are specific areas such as technology, research etc in multinational firms where English may at times be the working language. 

Why doesn’t the OP simply contact the HR of the nearest hospital to her home in France? She will at least get relevant advice as I’m assuming she wants to work near her home.

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[quote user="LanguedocGal2"]

[Let’s not forget that even for simple jobs within the French civil service, e.g the post office, there are ‘concours’ national tests and I cannot see how someone who doesn’t speak and write French fluently will get a look-in.

[/quote]

In fact I believe you have to be a French national (or at least from the DOM-TOM) to get a job even with the post office. I remember an article in Living France some time back.

One of the few things I really dislike about health provision in Britain is the number of people - even in responsible medical positions and in the private sector as well as the NHS - who have a very poor command of English. That's not racism, that's concern for my own, and others', health when there is such a risk of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Thankfully the French have managed to keep this problem to much lower proportions, but as health budgets get tightened I wonder how much longer they can hold out?

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[quote user="Will "]

In fact I believe you have to be a French national (or at least from the DOM-TOM) to get a job even with the post office. I remember an article in Living France some time back.

One of the few things I really dislike about health provision in Britain is the number of people - even in responsible medical positions and in the private sector as well as the NHS - who have a very poor command of English. That's not racism, that's concern for my own, and others', health when there is such a risk of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Thankfully the French have managed to keep this problem to much lower proportions, but as health budgets get tightened I wonder how much longer they can hold out?

[/quote]

I take your point Will.  However, having been so well looked after by a group of Filipino nurses in a London Hospital a few years back, I’d settle for highly skilled with ‘adequate’ linguistic competence to understaffing any day. 

By the way, aren’t the Dom-Toms French nationals too on the same basis as France Metropolitan?  I believe you are right about the Civil Service jobs and French nationality. It does beggar belief though that working at the post office counter or behind the scenes in one could be considered anything special to be reserved for nationals. It all smacks of daft protectionism.

I suppose the shortage of nurses may force the French system into a bit more flexibility in general recruitment but I wouldn't hold my breath, as flexiblity and adaptability are not qualities particularly known to the French State.

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