shocked

[Théière]

Beautifully put Sweets [:)]

When wealthy politicians fiddle their expenses ET AL and the like of Sir Philip Green and Vodafone don't pay a bean to the revenue (Ok it is in the UK) If your family are hungry then do as you must. Every millionaire is a lovely person once they made it but you don't make it by being straight!

[Chiefluvvie]

[quote user="idun"]

...... Life is hard for french people, never mind brits who chose to move to France, where I always considered myself a guest.......

[/quote]

You always considered yourself a 'guest' ?

How come idun? Would love to understand that one.......

Chiefluvvie

[idun]

Yes, and bascially an uninvited guest to boot.

I moved to someone else's country, with their laws and traditions and many things were and still are quite alien to me. However, by the time I left more than I imagined had rubbed off and my view of the world is often at odds now with just about every one I know.

It isn't as if it was not like that in France, so I am used to it, living on the edge of the community, observing, what is that, an outsider. A friendly outsider, usually. But now in England again, sometimes I see things from an angle that,  every UK friend or family member never looks at and I realise that that is the frenchness thing.

And still, I am not french. I will never really think or act like a french person in most situations. I don't always like what happens in France, but my feeling is it is 'their' country. I have some wonderful french friends and we love one another dearly, but I remain, their 'anglaise'.

Two more things come to mind, our novelty value and a certain suspicion of us that some felt. We were after all the only family  anglaise in the village, now there are none. And yet it was quite different for us in comparison to say, the maghreb and turkish families that live in the village, trezzeezy for us to integrate in comparison.

So yes, an uninvited guest, no one asked us, we just went there and made the best of it. 

 

[Russethouse]

My mothers Bulgarian carer has an expression - 'its not up to the guest in a house to re arrange the furniture'

[Chiefluvvie]

Idun – thanks very much for your reply – I empathise and agree with many of the things you say.

I suppose it was your choice of the word ‘guest’ that made me query your statement initially. To me it implied a level of humbleness, subservience or simply a feeling of being lower down in the pecking order. It also implies a temporary status. A guest is generally someone who receives a level of hospitality – whether one is paying for it or not! I guess it’s only semantics but……

I’m bilingual, live in a rural community and the majority of my family are French – I am not and nor do I want to be. That said I fully understand and agree with your comments about novelty value and suspicion however, I do really enjoy being ‘different’ - but thankfully not exposed to the xenophobia experienced by some.

Being ‘different’ can indeed be difficult sometimes and I have often found things to be a one way street with me making all the running! Some days I just can’t be bothered to make the effort and I become quite indignant – after all, I have every right to make my home in France(!)

So, I don’t consider myself to be a guest - that implies that I am afforded a level of hospitality when in fact, I sometimes think I am simply being ‘tolerated’. So I’m more of an explorer – lot’s of things and places to try, France is just one of them and they are lucky to have me:-)

In any case, no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent! (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Chiefluvvie

[idun]

LOL I never felt inferior just different and now I shall be forever different and that is OK, it is what 'I' am.  

So if not a 'guest', what on earth does one call oneselves when gatecrashing, not just a meer party but another country? If we take love (of a person) out of the equation ?

 

 

 

[Catalpa]

A resident.

Who, in our case, probably pay as much if not more in taxes and cotisations into the French system than most of our rural neighbours - not least because we have declared all the work we've done on the house unlike local French people who've gradually extended into barns and greniers without becoming liable for the associated increases in local taxes.

Gatecrashing? What a bizarre perception.

[suein56]

[quote user="Catalpa"]A resident.[/quote]

Yes OK, but, but that is your definition of your status here. On the other hand, you invited yourself here, no French person invited you to come and share their country/department/town/village/hamlet.

The longer I am here in France the more I think I am beginning to understand some French people's attitude to incomers. It is somewhat akin to when my OH and I moved into our Lincolnshire village in 1985. There we were from the same country, spoke the same language, but were not from the area and we certainly weren't related to anyone local, so, although we were welcomed we were still regarded as odd or different and that would not change however long we were there and however nice or helpful we might be. Here we are not even from the same country as the natural residents.

Here in 56 we still, nearly 7 years later, have French friends who cannot understand why anyone would want to retire to a foreign country.

Sue

[Catalpa]

[quote user="suein56"]Yes OK, but, but that is your definition of your status here. [/quote]Obviously. Just as Idun's definition is / was "guest".

[quote user="suein56"]On the other hand, you invited yourself here, no French person invited

you to come and share their country/department/town/village/hamlet. [/quote]I don't see the relevance. No one invited you to move to Lincolnshire but you could. No one invited me to move to France but under EU laws, I could. How French people choose to pigeonhole us is a different aspect of the discussion.

ETA:

I've re-thought this. No, resident is not my definition of my status here. I am a resident because I pay my taxes here. Resident immigrant would also fit the bill.

[YCCMB]

I've read a few times on here and other forums, comments from people who have said that one of the reasons they like living in France as opposed to the UK is that in the UK there's always an element of "keeping up" with the neighbours, which I feel seems to extrapolate into some sort of desire to impress. Or, at the very least, indicates a sense that in the UK it's accepted that one cares about how the neighbours perceive one. Overall, I certainly don't. I don't in England, and I don't in France. I don't see a need to pigeonhole myself in either country. And I would add that "not caring" doesn't mean I wouldn't behave politely or endeavour to fit in: simply that I wouldn't change my way of living life just to suit someone else's perceptions or beliefs.

As Catalpa points out, wherever you live in the UK/EU/World, it's not by invitation. I wasn't invited to my UK address any more than to my French one.

What I am, when living in France or any of the other countries of the world outside the UK, is a foreigner. No amount of taxpaying, "integrating" or being invited is going to change that.

[Catalpa]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I've read a few times on here and other forums, comments from people who have said that one of the reasons they like living in France as opposed to the UK is that in the UK there's always an element of "keeping up" with the neighbours, which I feel seems to extrapolate into some sort of desire to impress. [/quote]Yes, Betty. And, more than that, an indication that those who felt pressured by this odd sense of keeping up did, in their minds, fail. So they are more comfortable in France because the cultural references are different and if there's any keeping up going on between French neighbours (and there is [6]) they can't decipher the clues. [:D]

[Will]

Looks like I've missed some heated stuff over the weekend...

First of all, I really dislike the 'guest' tag. There may be some who regard themselves as being on a sort of permanent holiday, for whom the name might fit. Others, who work, pay taxes, contribute (heavily) to the health and social security systems, serve on municipal councils are certainly not guests. 'Immigrant' is fine; I am (strictly speaking was) happy to be considered an English person in France; I have no desire whatever to become French. In fact I like to be known as an immigrant - it winds up the Daily Mail crowd who say they can't live in 'yookay' any more because of the immigrants...

But I digress. Reading about 'criminals' I thought the OP must have committed at least GBH or armed robbery. But no, he took part in a French national pastime, indulged in by just about every national from the government down. If he got away with it (which it seems he did, despite the apparent drubbing from the smug 'guests') that's hardly surprising. URSSAF etc only really takes an interest in large-scale evasion, as practiced on large construction projects by crooked gangmasters employing black immigrant labour, but charging the client as if full cotisations were being paid. Maybe a blatant totally unregistered British worker - and his client - in an area where foreigners aren't particularly liked might be treated as an easy target and made an example of, but for the most part it's just a gallic shrug accompanied by 'c'est normal'. Given such circumstances there must be few people who wouldn't take a chance on a bit of undeclared work; it's certainly not right, but is perfectly understandable.

There are plenty of officials in France who don't like foreigners, don't like Parisians, or people from the next département, or from the other branch of the family that their forefathers fell out with just after the revolution, so despite what is supposed to happen in theory about aid, it's highly credible that something different happens in practice. Of course, there are also plenty who are totally sympathetic and really helpful - it's the luck of the draw.

Once again, it comes down to not believing all that tosh saying that France, or any other foreign country, is somewhere where the sun always shines, it costs a pittance to live, and is full of friendly peasants inviting you for aperitifs and leaving courgettes on your doorstep. As always, real life is different. The OP at least wasn't seduced by that rubbish himself by the sound of it, but the story should serve as a caution for those who still might be.

[Chancer]

Story! What story?

Must have been a good one to have been deleted!

[idun]

[quote user="Catalpa"]A resident.


Who, in our case, probably pay as much if not more in taxes and cotisations into the French system than most of our rural neighbours - not least because we have declared all the work we've done on the house unlike local French people who've gradually extended into barns and greniers without becoming liable for the associated increases in local taxes.

Gatecrashing? What a bizarre perception.
[/quote]

 

Catalpa, I am probably more than a little bizarre.

 

Immigrant, well I never saw myself as that. There was nothing so sure as we would not stay in France when retirement hit and we were youngish when we got there, absolutely no chance. I know how it all works for us and still have to deal with France 'à distance' but we did not want 'french' daily living in our  lives as retirees. And even if that notion of leaving France had abandoned us, which it didn't, we would have had to escape the country........ I could not cope with living in the country any more and never will again, anywhere. It is for holidays and days out and farmers.

I read and I watch lots of history programs and it appears since the beginning of time many cultures liked to accumulate nice things and have better than their neighbours if they could. Why modern britons are chosen as some example of avarice by their countrymen/women is beyond me. And I don't care what my neighbours have. I cannot say that I don't crave some things in this life that others have and are completely unobtainable, and go into the the 'dream' class, a good singing voice, having the ear with languages, but their 'things' well, I really don't care. If 'things' are important to them, well so be it. It isn't as if I didn't see that in France too, because even in my village I saw it. I care not. And if that is a reason to move to France....... I am almost speechless, it exists.

 

 

 

 

[Val_2]

In my little commune currently there are three largish fueds going on between locals and locals, locals and Parisiennes and locals and second home owners, one made the press and the others,the tribunal. Its great being on the outside and looking in at them all fighting and knowing for once its not a brit involved or even a case of working on the black. What I am trying to say is that whoever you are, wherever you come from,there will always be those people who don't like you or yours or people who will always try and buck the systems and not just the brits either. We have worked for some gendarmes and other officials over the years and the first thing they wanted to do, was pay in cash with no paperwork! I have no idea what the story is about the OP,perhaps we might have a version less controversial to make our comments about??

[pachapapa]

Quote:

First of all, I really dislike the 'guest' tag. There may be some who regard themselves as being on a sort of permanent holiday, for whom the name might fit. Others, who work, pay taxes, contribute (heavily) to the health and social security systems, serve on municipal councils are certainly not guests. 'Immigrant' is fine; I am (strictly speaking was) happy to be considered an English person in France; I have no desire whatever to become French. In fact I like to be known as an immigrant - it winds up the Daily Mail crowd who say they can't live in 'yookay' any more because of the immigrants...

End Quote.

And despite all the above the ETAT-UMP  will not permit me universal suffrage.

So denying me the chance of voting for Marine Le Pen.

[idun]

I once said to my bank conseillier that some things were hard for us etrangers, but he said, that I wasn't an etrangere, I was anglaise.

I suppose I was happy enough being considered an english woman living in France when it boils down to it.

 

ps may that bank conseiller rot, what a liar and completely sans scruples.