General cost of living in France compaired to England ?

[Logan]

I read something interesting today which may be relevant to anyone thinking of leaving the UK for a life in France.

It seems that in 2004 the UK average salary rose 13% and now stands at £27,532. Also unemployment is well under half that of France and Germany and falling. Getting a decent job in the UK is not difficult. It is the contrary in France. Getting employment here is extremely difficult if not impossible for any British people who only have a basic knowledge of French. It is also extremely difficult for French people. France in my opinion is in terminal economic decline because of a system that is completely out of date. I love living in France but have a private income. If I did not I would live in the UK, work and wait until I could live here without working.

[Lavie]

£27,532 seems incredibly high to be an 'average' UK salary.

I have a friend in recruitment and she says the majority of non-management roles they handle (big UK recruitment company) are a lot less than that and doesn't know of anyone that received a 13% pay rise last year.  I think the press must have inflated this figure a bit!

[Logan]

This item was broadcast by Sky financial news who usually check their sources. However my point holds good in the sense that as a Brit. you stand a far better chance of earning a decent living in the UK than France. I accept that folk are seeking a better more satisfying life without the stress of modern life in Britain. That scenario is available in France but comes at a cost. The cost is serious personal economic decline. You have to balance one against the other and make a choice. France is struggling to compete in the modern global economy. It needs to reform it's economic system and free up it's internal markets as a start. The problem is that there are so many vested interests and organisations working against the very idea of reform. These vested interests are institutionalised with powerful political levers and strings attached to government. No current French politician has the courage to step into the fray and deal with it hands on. Until such an exception occurs the status quo of rising unemployment and declining markets will continue.

Life style choices are of course a matter of personal choice. If living in rural poverty with time on your hands appeals then fine. Move to France and enjoy. However stress can come equally from poverty trying to make ends meet as being high powered and successful.

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Logan,I understand what you are saying but you have only taken it so far,what happens because the french will not reform and their deficit is outside the euro limits like it has been for the last few years also the germens the same in greece,the euro is now so strong that that in it,s self does not bode well for growth,and with only three net contributors in to the EU pot what for the rest.

[Jsey]

[quote]No doubt people will disagree with me, BUT from what i've seen, general food shopping prices in large multi chain shops (LeClerc, Carrefour, Super U etc) are much the same as the UK but in Euros. ie. ...[/quote]

Where are you!, I've just paid 10.50 for a 4lb chook in InterMarche.

[Teamedup]

I have no idea what a chook is..... what is it.

[Russethouse]

Chicken ?

[Iceni]

<quote>I read something interesting today which may be relevant to anyone thinking of leaving the UK for a life in France.
It seems that in 2004 the UK average salary rose 13% and now stands at £27,532. Also unemployment is well under half that of France and Germany and falling. Getting a decent job in the UK is not difficult. It is the contrary in France. Getting employment here is extremely difficult if not impossible for any British people who only have a basic knowledge of French. It is also extremely difficult for French people. France in my opinion is in terminal economic decline because of a system that is completely out of date. I love living in France but have a private income. If I did not I would live in the UK, work and wait until I could live here without working.</quote>

Trust me, this is very very wrong. 13% wage inflation would have the Bank of England raising interest rates like never before. The median salary for a full time worker was £22,060 - still very high but probably put out of balance by very high London city wages. The average median increase in wages on year to April 2004 was 4.7 per cent - and this was higher in people employed by the UK Gov (ie you and me as I still pay some UK tax at the moment) normal wage increases were less than this. IDS pay report - full details here http://www.incomesdata.co.uk/report/view917.htm.

As someone who has an interest in statistics (I used to teach them) France is 'supposed' to have one of the strongest economies of the major EEC countries (sorry I cannot find this link at the moment but will publish it if I find it). The UK 'could' have a problem due to the huge devaluation of the $ which seems to be gaining ground as the US sees this as a way of decreasing the cost of their huge deficit. Many large UK companies 'could' have problems as they report and work in dollars and the € 'could' continue to outshine the £ - but this is all speculation .

On a final note about getting a job in the UK. If you are over 50 and male, you have as much chance of getting a 'decent' job in the UK as you have in France and the more qualified you are the less likelihood of a job (UK). Over 55 and I think the UK does not even show you as unemployed - so a large proportion of men face 10 years out of work and it is not even recognised in the statistics. Putting your labour into creating a unique home where you can live and enjoy life during those 10 years and probably increase your life expectancy seems to be a far better use of time than doing minimum pay jobs to while away the years.

Don't believe everything that you read, they also sometimes get it wrong (as do I hence all the inverted commas.)

[Logan]

Over 55 and I think the UK does not even show you as unemployed - so a large proportion of men face 10 years out of work and it is not even recognised in the statistics. Putting your labour into creating a unique home where you can live and enjoy life during those 10 years and probably increase your life expectancy seems to be a far better use of time than doing minimum pay jobs to while away the time.

Yes, I would agree with your last remarks. Presumably folk of 55 plus will have more than £68K behind them to sustain life. The original poster I think was not in that grouping and presumably has a much longer working life ahead. He asked for advice on coming to live in France and I think if he reads these replies he will find them constructive. I am trying to make the point that coming to live here from Britain without substantial independent resources is folly. I accept some folks have done just that and are living a life that they find agreeable. However is a life of subsistence living acceptable to all? Most I suspect will become very tired of the daily struggle after a while, particularly if their standard of living in the UK was somewhat higher. The economic future of France and Germany is bleak because they cannot implement the necessary structural reforms to their economies and social system. The single currency has made it more difficult for their economies to be flexible and responsive to market forces. Business suffers from over regulation and interference from bureaucracy. I could continue the list is long and well known. The only success story in Europe is Spain. The reason is their economy like the UK benefits from deregulation and flexibility in the workforce.

Unfortunately we in France will continue to have to pay higher taxes, more for healthcare and pensions and more to sustain the overbearing bureaucracy as the budget deficits increase. My message to younger Brits thinking of moving here is stay in Britain where your prospects are vastly better.

[Nigel Numbers]

Thank you everyone for your kind responses, especially now that I know this is a common topic around here. I never new that before.

It would appear that we won't be moving to France on the basis of what we have heard here.

As for the TV programmes, it would also appear that they are selling broken dreams.

I myself happen to be an independent production company and I am giving series thought to writing a script entitled "Moving to France - The Naked Truth".

I don't think I would find it hard finding families who have moved to france and have some down-to-earth stories to tell.

If there are any people on here who would be willing to be interviewed on camera and tell some "Real" stories about what it is "Really" like then drop me an email at [email protected]

Thanks again everyone.

Nigel

[Athene]

[quote]Thank you everyone for your kind responses, especially now that I know this is a common topic around here. I never new that before.It would appear that we won't be moving to France on the basis of wha...[/quote]

I think you WILL be surpised Nigel! People who come onto this site are genuine people who are either living in France or have aspirations to so do! It is a really valuable self help site, we will all agree I am sure! They are not here to fill the coffers of TV moghuls with exposes of their lives and in general for no fees! Make your documentary but leave people and their dreams alone, they should be a personal thing and not for any fat cat TV programmes to make a profit from.

[Iceni]

Hi Nigel

Statistics hat on again here but I think the overall tax burden in France is no different from the overall tax burden in the UK. We just get taxed in a different way.

With regard to horror stories. Think how someone in their 30's with 68K in capital who cannot speak English well and did not have curently required skills would fair in the UK. They would not be able to afford to purchase a small flat in most of the UK and apart from minimum wage work would find it very very hard to get any work at all. I don't think it is any different but we never look at it from the other side. France is full of horror stories and many pack up and go home within 3 years. Without family support I would think that someone in the UK would have the same sort of horror stories unless they are prepared to live on benefits which is not really what we are talking about.

Lets compare like with like and realise that this is a totally different country, because it is in the EEC we seem to assume it has to be the same. 

[Nigel Numbers]

I agree totally, however I personally am not a fat-cat, I'm low-budget independent. I have managed to get a few things broadcast over the years. I think somebody should put these tacky fake TV programme makers in their place though, especially if they are leading everybody to believe that they can spend £45,000 on a 5 bedroom house with 4 acres, then spend the rest of their lives sitting around drinking wine over looking their own personal vineyard surrounded by some of the finest scenery in the world, that just sucks.

Sure, people can have their dreams, but personally, I'd rather somebody told me to be realistic about my dreams, just like you kind folk on here have done.

[Tresco]

Nigel, you posted a multiple question about the cost of living in France, saying you were seriously thinking of moving here. Roughly 35 people responded, many of them at length.

Now you're saying on the basis of these responses you are seriously thinking of making a film instead. (Having added 'independent production company' to your LF 'CV').

This isn't the first time this site has been visited by someone wanting free info/people for their 'low budget' films, but I can't help but smell a rat.

What came first, the 'dream of moving to France, or your new 'dream' of making a film about what a nightmare it can be????? 

tresco

[Teamedup]

So Nigel I know someone who you can do your program about............. YOU!

 

That is how you started this post, about moving here....... so why not do it. I would watch, especially as you would have to register your production company here and all. It would be nice to sit here nodding. We don't watch these progs much but those we see finds husband and I continually glancing at one another incredulously and then husband starts talking to the telly and telling them what's what........

And as a side note, I know of 55 year old's that find work in the UK, never heard of one here. I think it does depend where one lives and what one wants to do though. In fact a friend of ours has only just stopped working and he is almost 65, and he has been contracting for years. I say stopped working he is planning on getting a part time job now and he will.

 

 

[Me0wp00]

I've just worked out our household expenses for the last 3 years as a budgeting exercise *Sad I know*

Now the house is practically finished this years bills, habitation, electric, water, rubbish, fonciers, house insurance, internet and telephone rental have worked out to be 3300E. it's a 3 bedroom house with underfloor heating using solar/electric and we're double glazed with good insulation. Our car insurance is always hugely high as we have many vehicles and that equates to 2400E a year alone. Animal and our food/living I reckon on 80E a week

telephone calls 20E month, mobiles 20e month. Petrol always very high except one of the vehicles is GPL so works out about 30E a week.

Without major disasters, illnesses or car problems I reckon we can live very comfortably without scrimping on food, electric, even perhaps a holiday on between 13-18,000E a year in the UK we paid that for running the house alone without food and telephone bills.

[Nigel Numbers]

tresco, get real. I can assure you my original post was true. Hell, I'll even have Louise take a photo of me holding the books, map and magazines that I bought and post the jpeg picture here if you don't believe me.

The documentary idea just popped into my head this morning when I was in the car with Louise, so I came home and scribbled down some notes. I am always doing this, I have about 20 ideas penned for documentaries and the like.

If I only ever intended to get information for a documentary I was planning I would have simply put up a post which would have read "Independent filmmaker needs your stories of moving to France for TV programme".

I would have then stated what I required, I think most people would have still given me the information I was looking for.

However, this was not my intention, Louise and I first looked at Tuscany in Italy, but after similar research i.e. buying books "Living and working in Italy" and "Buying a property in Italy" and posting in Italian forums, we decided that Italy was Way too expensive, the properties are treble what they are in France, as for cost of living, forget it, the taxes are sky high. The whole plan came tumbling down very fast and Louise even knows people who live in Italy who could help us, still it did not pan out, hence we looked into France, which, although not as bad, it is not the easy option we thought (as per TV programmes led us to believe) it would be.

We are confused at the moment, we don't know if we should even bother exploring other countries, we know we are not happy here, but is there anywhere on the face of the planet that we could buy a cheap home in the sun and sit around all day drinking wine??? Maybe not.

My older brother lives in the USA (marraid an American girl), but we can't even get over there, it's just too impossible with all their immigration laws etc. It would take 10 years before they would even look at my application.

No rat here, just a couple looking for a better life.

[Tresco]

I still don't understand Nigel. No one who has/wants to work can sit around in the sun drinking cheap wine all day.

That said, given the idignation of your response to me, I will again take your original question at face value. Some, or even many of the responses posted to you are postitive, and if you go through the archives you will find many more.

Don't change your mind based on what you have read here, in the first 35 or so responses.

 tresco

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

It must be about ten years ago that I saw a documentary that followed people moving to France, I think in fact to 24; it appeared to be a disaster for all of them. I haven't seen any of the rose-tinted ones. I particularly remember a rock musician's girlfriend selling her clothes...

Unfortunately the message that came across wasn't the problems people face in France as opposed to the UK, rather like in the LF magazines of the time who ran similar disaster stories regularly the message was "these people didn't do their homework". There was a similar story in one of the UK dailies that the forum pulled apart easily a while back.

Doing your homework is very difficult; the forum wasn't around then.

I think it may also be difficult to present a documentary (or anything) which addresses the broad issues rather than makes the people who made mistakes look stupid.

[Cerise]

Hello Nigel

Don't give up the dream so easily!!

If it's what you really want to do, why do you have to buy a house?   With your 100,000 euros you could put 75,000 in the bank - rent something small for a year (say 6000 euros) and still have enough to live on for the first year.  If you managed to get jobs, find cheap house to buy etc all would be well.  If not, well you haven't lost much and your money in bank would still get you a deposit back in the UK if you change your mind.

Nobody of working age can really afford to sit round all day looking at their vines (mine need pruning as I write) but if you are working independently in UK then taking a year out would not matter too much and you could try the lifestyle.   If you did manage to get jobs reasonably quickly, you wouldn't even spend the remaining 19,000.

Put that way it doesn't sound so scary and if you don't like it, well at least you tried.

Good luck, whatever you decide

Maggi

 

[Logan]

I have no problem with Nigel Numbers fishing for material on the forum. As a journalist any source is useful and it is a free market. You enjoy commercial freedoms in the UK Nigel but try doing the same in France registered as an independent production company. You will meet constant obstructions and difficulty. The more TV programmes publicise the truth about the backward bureaucracies of Europe the better. Any pressure directly or indirectly may help to bring about change. It will also help any potential migrants to understand the realities about moving into Europe and may even save some a great deal of grief..Good luck.

[Will]

Hello Nigel - how's Nippy getting on?

Seriously, that programme didn't do a bad job of showing how difficult it was to run a business in France, even for a knowledgeable switched-on sort of person like Nigel Farrel

No problem with film makers, journalists, marketing companies etc trying to get information as long as they are honest about why they want the info, so those who give it can choose whether to do so or not. Advising an individual and having your information used for commercial purposes are two very different things of course.

And anybody requesting info for films, books, articles, surveys etc should get the permission of Living France's publishers before asking on LF's forum, just in case of clashes of interest etc.

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Will,spot on,and

[Miki]

 It must be about ten years ago that I saw a documentary that followed people moving to France, I think in fact to 24; it appeared to be a disaster for all of them. I haven't seen any of the rose-tinted ones. I particularly remember a rock musician's girlfriend selling her clothes...

Pucette, we had friends who taped that small series and gave us the video cassette, it was called French Affaires and it was around 1993 or 94, I think.

The chap finally sold his beloved motorbike and their big people carrier as well. They tried to breed chickens and tried to live the country life in general and at the same time were doing up gites (in a fashion poor things !). Sadly they divorced in the end. They wanted to escape the rat race (ring any bells those who somehow think it is a recent thing !) and had come from the big lights and the music industry with matching big salary's. Being so young, they both admitted to missing the city life and with young kids (was there one or two, have to watch it again one day to refresh myself of the 4 couples, was it 4 even !) it was pretty much doomed, they had so much to do and so little money that the pressure they found themselves under, ended up greater than the one they escaped from.

Another couple went in to Estate agancy, finished now. Another one lost  their lovely house etc through finance difficulties and one lady bought a vineyard,  long story there, her husband fell seriously ill pretty soon after arriving and she had a "friend" who helped her in the initial period.

I had forgotten all about that series, I shall take another peek sometime soon, any Q's tell me and I will let you know how the short(ish) programme went. There was a follow up which copied most of the original programme and just addded a few minutes of what they were up to now. Not sure if we have that one though. It certainly was all around the 24 and we met one of the couples sometime before the programme.

 

 

[Alexis]

I remember that series.  One of the couples was busy converting a building for a gite I think and they were trying to borrow money.  When it came through, they had a party.  I remember my old Dad being outraged!!!!!!

One of the other, a hippy type, sorry, had a bath in the barn .....

The lady with the vines really knuckled down to it.

I think I had already bought the first few houses by then

I know that I lived in absolute poverty when I first arrived.  I was lucky enought to get a job in the first month and things gradually got better.  Then of course, I married the son of Midas.......  The best bit being I didn't have any idea the family were rich.