We are debating on a move to France. Any advice appreciated!

[desperatedan]

Hi, I'm new to this forum but have been looking at a lot of posts for quite a while now. My family are fed up living in England and would very much like to live in France as we love the lifestyle and culture and have visited many times. We have been debating it for over a year now. Problem is we are finding it difficult to decide which part of France we would ideally like to live in!! We have two daughters aged 8 and 5 and are worried about how they will adjust and how the school system works with English people. We have talked about it with them and they havent showed any concerns and seem excited about it which is good!

So any advice would be greatly received.

Thanks

[PaulT]

Would have thought the biggest consideration is how are you going to earn a living?

Thaqt might inluence where you live on the assumption that you can actually find a job

Paul

[Cerise]

Being fed up with England is not a good reason to move to France.  What are you fed up with?  Weather - well we have a lot of that here you know.  Politics - some of those here are pretty horrendous.  The relatives - they'll come and stay for 2 weeks instead of just the weekend[6]

Seriously, do you and your family speak French?   What are you going to do for a living and will be able/allowed to do it in France? Have you got enough capital to tide you over for a couple of years until you get going?  The working and the language are for the moment the most important things.  If you have a young family you need to make sure they are secure and unless you are very rich, life without employment is precarious.

[desperatedan]

Fortunatley we have enough capital to purchase a house outright and have enough left over to comfortably live for 2-3 years. Working in France would only be for extra money to be honest. We would like to rent out part of a house as a holiday let which would also enable us some extra cash. We wouldnt move to France If it meant worrying about money too much to be honest. As regards for leaving England I cant wait to get out of here. The country is falling apart economically and politically. We want a change in lifestyle too. Surely thats a good enough answer to leave??

[Cat]

It might be a good idea to have a trade to fall back on needed (plumbing for example).

Which area were you thinking of?  South West/Aquitaine perhaps?

[desperatedan]

Yes good point Cat. My other half wants to work locally in the region wether it be in a shop etc. I would very much like to re-train in something within the 2-3 years after moving. I currently work in the fire and security industry and hope that I can re-qualify for something similar in France. We have fully accepted that moving to France means living the french way to the full. We very much so want to indulge and become involved with the french way of life. We are currently taking french lessons to help us overcome the language barrier!

 

[Cat]

Good idea.  Sadly many have found that gites are not as easy an option as they might seem, several forum members have sold up and returned to the UK recently.

You would need to look into healthcare as well, especially if you or a family member have pre-existing conditions.

[Cerise]

With children so young, you need to think long term in terms of finance.  Spend a bit of time reading through this forum.  After the 2-3 years you need to have a steady income.  Many people manage in the beginning and then find it more and more difficult if they have no work.  The gite market is quite saturated and long term renting in France is fraught with problems.

I am not trying to be negative, but we have no children and I am a fluent French speaker, and my husband is fairly fluent.  We also bought our house outright - we work but on French wages do little more than get by, not a happy position for someone with a young family.  I know people for whom it has worked and in each case they had a viable long term plan for working.  Administratively life is great deal more complicated in France than in the UK and there are not the easy work opportunities.

Why not rent for a year and see how you like it before throwing caution to the winds. 

[Iceni]

[quote user="desperatedan"]

Fortunatley we have enough capital to purchase a house outright and have enough left over to comfortably live for 2-3 years. Working in France would only be for extra money to be honest. We would like to rent out part of a house as a holiday let which would also enable us some extra cash. We wouldnt move to France If it meant worrying about money too much to be honest. As regards for leaving England I cant wait to get out of here. The country is falling apart economically and politically. We want a change in lifestyle too. Surely thats a good enough answer to leave??

[/quote]

Yes, those are good reasons to want to leave but dreaming of  a better life free of care and woe will not feed, clothe or heat you and your offspring. Unless you approach the move in a business like manner (which means knowing where the money will come from after year 3) you may well become famous as failures on a tv prog about France.

Your responses have not convinced me that you have done much research beyond asking for advice on this forum and your non-answer on the question of earning endorses this.

Remember - money doesn't matter if you have plenty of it.

John 

 

[andyh4]

Oh dear, am I the only one who thinks this is doomed to failure?

 

I don't want to put you totally off DD but here are a few reality checks

 

[quote user="desperatedan"]

Hi, I'm new to this forum but have been looking at a lot of posts for quite a while now. My family are fed up living in England and would very much like to live in France as we love the lifestyle and culture and have visited many times. We have been debating it for over a year now. Problem is we are finding it difficult to decide which part of France we would ideally like to live in!! We have two daughters aged 8 and 5 and are worried about how they will adjust and how the school system works with English people. We have talked about it with them and they havent showed any concerns and seem excited about it which is good!

So any advice would be greatly received.

Thanks

[/quote]

 

Schooling - compared with the UK, inflexible, much longer hours, does not seem to inspire creativity in the children, prone to frequent strikes (which means you have to stay home to look after the children). Oh and it's all in French - how well do the children speak it?

[quote user="desperatedan"]

Fortunatley we have enough capital to purchase a house outright and have enough left over to comfortably live for 2-3 years. Working in France would only be for extra money to be honest. We would like to rent out part of a house as a holiday let which would also enable us some extra cash. We wouldnt move to France If it meant worrying about money too much to be honest. As regards for leaving England I cant wait to get out of here. The country is falling apart economically and politically. We want a change in lifestyle too. Surely thats a good enough answer to leave??

 

[/quote]

 

Working in France would only be for extra money - for how long?  When can you retire and get an income?  I was going to say guaranteed income, but as many have found with the exchange rates in 2008, their guaranteed income lost 30% of its value in France.

 

Holiday let - 5-6 weeks per year in most areas, occupancy rates vary but can be as low as 30% so say 2 weeks full occupancy (and yes I know I am painting the black picture, but if you can survice with the worst case scenario, you will be OK).

 

The country is falling appart economically - and France has not been hit by the financial crisis? Afraid it has.  The solutions may have been somehwat different, but the problems are broadly similar except in manufacturing Industries, where France is much worse off, simply because the UK destryed its industry years ago.

 

Falling appart politically - not sure how long ago it was when France was together politically.  De Gaulle maybe?

 

[quote user="desperatedan"]

 

Yes good point Cat. My other half wants to work locally in the region wether it be in a shop etc. I would very much like to re-train in something within the 2-3 years after moving. I currently work in the fire and security industry and hope that I can re-qualify for something similar in France. We have fully accepted that moving to France means living the french way to the full. We very much so want to indulge and become involved with the french way of life. We are currently taking french lessons to help us overcome the language barrier!

 

[/quote]

 

Wanting to work and getting a job are very different things.  France has around 10% unemployment and they all already speak fluent French.  Your wife getting a job will therefore be something less than a peice of cake.

 

Not sure how you would be able to requalify in France.  I have hardly read anywhere about people requalifying for anything.  The other side of the inflexible education system is that it trains children to go into particular discipline - changing that direction seems to be as difficult as deciding you are on the wrong plane when the captain comes on and says welcome to your flight to New York we are at 30000 feet.

 

So enough of the negatives:

 

My advice would be to list all of the things you dislike about the UK and ask specific questions about each one.

 

So for example:

Brown is a loser and in charge of a bunch of scheming, lying, cheating MPs from all sides.  What is it like in France?

Answer might be:

Sarkosy is just as bad, all French MPs are on the take, and the French political system is much more fragmented than the UK.

 

followed by some debate from which you can then take a view.

 

Please do not be seduced by either

the 2 week summer holiday (in winter surpringly we get a lot of snow, the nice young English speaking people have all gone back to university, and there are few organised events),

or the "House in the Sun" - I spoke to a builder and he can fix this for x thousand euros. Point 1, that was 2001 prices, point 2, the builder can do it, but he only does building, you also need an electrician, roofer, plumber, carpenter, tiler and x thousand rapidly becomes 10 time as much.

 

And if after all of that you still want to come.  The good luck, it can be a fantastic place to live, but it is just as difficult as the UK, just differently difficult.

 

[Joffan]

When we moved here 8 years ago it was to follow a dream of living in a beautiful region, lots of good weather and living the French way. Like you we have 2 children with us in France (aged 9 and 6 at the time we arrived).

We hardly had any money GBP20,000. No job. Very little French.

I wouldn't recommend it but we are still here with a small business, the children are totally integrated and we still wouldn't want to live in the UK again.

If it is your dream and you are prepared to be flexible and work hard - go for it - the least that can happen is that the children will become bilingual and you will have had an adventure.

[Benjamin]

[quote user="Iceni"][quote user="desperatedan"]

Fortunatley we have enough capital to purchase a house outright and have enough left over to comfortably live for 2-3 years. 

[/quote]

Remember - money doesn't matter if you have plenty of it.

John 

[/quote]

It's easy when there is plenty of cash around to imagine it will last forever. Taking the lower estimate of two years resources and then building in the things that bite yer bum you're probably looking at 18 months cover. Without a definite well researched plan in place it simply isn't enough.

Best of luck. I fully understand where you're coming from as regards your and your family's future.

[Lori]

[quote user="desperatedan"]

We have fully accepted that moving to France means living the french way to the full. We very much so want to indulge and become involved with the french way of life.

[/quote]

Please don't take this question the wrong way, but what does the above actually mean to you?  Can you define it?

It isn't always do-able, but I agree with the idea of renting for a year or two before chucking it all and making a permanent move.  It would give you the right amount of time to see how your children react to life/school here and offer you a better understanding of the French way of life. 

Just my two cents worth.

[Panda]

Hello

I agree with much of what has been said.  We have lived in France since 2003, have one child who was 3 on arrival.  When we came here it was to change our life, I was working 60+ hours per week, really stressed out and didn't seem my family very much.  So we saw a house we liked bought it and was here in 4 months from looking to moving in.  We thought we had enough cash to see us through 2 years, we soon relised we needed aorund 35k per year just to survive, the house was not mortaged. I kept working for my old employer part time (as a contractor) and that is the only thing that has kept us from going under depsite having 4 appartments on long term let which have been rented intermittently during that time.

My son hates school here now (6 years on), it is just not interestng enough for him, he is bright and was top of his class for most of the time here, he is now bored of learning a poem every week of going over and over conjugation and never having anything interesting to talk about that has happened in the school day.  He is really unmotivated, the kids have never accepted him as one of them either, nor has the teacher.  I was horrified to overhear one day, 'go to the back of the line, the french come first in france', this from an 8 year old.  My son just went to the back, when I called him over to ask about it he said they always say things like that, they always have, I was really upset.  It all came to a head when we were watching the program recently broadcast about children with disability, Turning 9, the kids are his age and we talked about the issues raised during the program.  The last scene was a boy with dwarfism who was sitting alone in a playground, he said I just hate being different, at this my son had a tear rolling down his cheek but said nothing.  I was heartbroken, this was my dream not his and I realised in that single moment what it had meant to him.

So we have decided to return to the UK, what have I learned from this experience.  Work is a necessary evil, I will never complain about it again, please do not underestimate the feeling of helplessnes when you come out of a highly paid job in the UK and arrrive in France to realise quickly that the most you can hope for in salared employement is 8.71 an hour and even that is extremly hard to find despite me being almost fluent in french.  Self employment (which is what I did) is also hard, costs are very high and it feels like you are being squeezed dry by all the various agencies for your hard earned cash.

No one can make up your mind for you but please don't think it will be easy, it's not. 

Panda

EDIT; Forgot to add, on a happier note I love France and will return here to retire when my son has hopefully reached his full potential and is happily doing whatever he choses to do! 

 

[Lori]

Oh Panda, I can so relate to your experience with the schools and the attitudes.  Your post made my eyes well up.  Though my daughter is in college, not primary school.

I wish you (and your family) all the very best in your move back to the UK.

[Sprogster]

Panda, I am so pleased you have posted your experiences on this forum, which I have been following with great interest in the more detailed posts you have made on the other forum, of which we are both members.

What validates your opinions so much, is that you still love France so are not bitter or regretful about your experiences and are able to draw a comparison with your Nieces and Nephews who still live and are being educated in the UK.

Your poor experiences of the French educational sysyem is shared by the the French government which is critical of their country's rigid educational systems and as I am sure you are aware, have been trying to push through fundamental reforms without success so far, because of the militant teaching unions in the main.

None of the French Universities/Colleges appear in the world's top fifty list either, so it would appear that better educational opportunities are not one of the reasons to move to France.

[desperatedan]

Oh well thanks very much for all your advice. Very negative most of it! 

[Sprogster]

desperatedan to quote a French friend of mine: "France is the best country in the world to go on holiday or retire to, but not a good country in which to make a living unless you work for government". Most Brits that have homes in France and probably therefore members of this forum, tend to fit within the former category and not the latter.

Have you considered, Oz, NZ, USA or Canada as that is where a lot of the professional French classes are emigrating to these days and where I would go if I had young children.

[woolybanana]

Yes, me too.

[Lori]

Agree with Sprogster.  I can say many nice things about France, but you asked about a specific scenario and it isn't the first time it has been asked.

If you search this forum (particularly under the education section), you will find so many similar threads.  Many had positive replies.

You asked us, we answered.  This is coming from folks who have lived here for many years.  I don't think any of us wishes to completely discourage you, only to make sure you have as much information as possible.  I'm sure many of us could go on and on about specifics, but that, I don't think, is what you want to hear.

There are many nice things about living here.  There are many that aren't nice too.  That is why I asked you what you meant about living the French lifestyle/culture.

No matter what you decide, I wish you and your family the best of luck and happiness.

[desperatedan]

[quote user="Lori"]

Agree with Sprogster.  I can say many nice things about France, but you asked about a specific scenario and it isn't the first time it has been asked.

If you search this forum (particularly under the education section), you will find so many similar threads.  Many had positive replies.

You asked us, we answered.  This is coming from folks who have lived here for many years.  I don't think any of us wishes to completely discourage you, only to make sure you have as much information as possible.  I'm sure many of us could go on and on about specifics, but that, I don't think, is what you want to hear.

There are many nice things about living here.  There are many that aren't nice too.  That is why I asked you what you meant about living the French lifestyle/culture.

No matter what you decide, I wish you and your family the best of luck and happiness.

[/quote]Thanks

[jon]

Dreaming is also important.

Having something to look forward to.

I came here less than two years ago and I remember my postings here on the forum.If you have funds to keep you going for a few years and you can buy a house[with a reasonable size garden...grow some of your own fruits and vegies]then why not.I know of lots of children who have settled here and learnt to be very happy speaking French and enjoying the schools.Life is fairly difficult everywhere.....but change can be exciting.

Think about where you should be settling....not just for the price or weather factor...think about an area where there is tourism....even in these difficult times people do goon holidays[the French....Americans are coming back to our area...I believe]So a chambre d hote is probably a better idea than a gite.Also settle in a wine growing area.Lots of interesting things going on through summer....like fetes,vandage.My area is rather special.

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Panda"]

We thought we had enough cash to see us through 2 years, we soon relised we needed aorund 35k per year just to survive, the house was not mortaged.

[/quote]

With all due respect Panda, no mortgage and you needed 35k just to survive... I envy your lifestyle.......I think  !!!!!

I think your definition of survival and mine may be a just a tad different.

[Kitty]

DD - Before you make a major commitment, you should consider renting a house for as long as you can.  Rents in France during the winter months (outside May - Sept) are relatively cheap.  You can then try out France first.

In 2004, we rented a house off the internet.  I negotiated a rent for three months but with an agreed break clause after 2 weeks.  This was a good idea because when I arrived the house was not what I wanted and so I spent the first few days negotiating a cheap rent in a lovely house near by.  I had found schools for all the children before I arrived, again from the internet.   I chose private schools because they were more flexible about having children for only a term.  Private schools are not expensive here in France - for example, I paid about 50 euros per month for my son (6 at the time) and that included meals.

During the three months, I stayed in France with our four children and my husband kept his job in the UK and commuted back and forth. The time made us realise that coming to France was 'do-able'.  The children were happy because they had enjoyed their three month stay.  We also spent part of the time looking at houses and decided to buy about 2 hours from where we were renting.

I would strongly recommend this approach.

[KathyF]

[quote user="desperatedan"]

Oh well thanks very much for all your advice. Very negative most of it! 

[/quote]

Dan, I would rather say that it is realistic and very well-meant.  No-one is trying to be nasty, they just don't want you to make a very bad mistake because of lack of information and forward-planning.

The cost of living in France is now at least as high as in the UK in many ways, especially given the weak pound which means that your savings will not go nearly as far as they would have done a couple of years ago. The days of cheap housing and cheap food which tempted many from the UK to move to France are well and truly over. As others have said, unemployment is considerably higher than in Britain and  it can be almost impossible to get a job in rural areas (which is where most Brits want to live) particularly if your French is not very good. That's probably why there are at least 400,000 younger French people living and working in Britain. In addition there are costs such as health insurance which we don't have in Britain and which can knock a big hole in the budget for a family of four.

No-one is saying don't come, just if you do, come with your eyes open and with full awareness of the things that could go wrong and make life very difficult for you and your family.  Being poor isn't much fun in any country.