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Integration into French society


Francelover
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Yep, I agree 100% with your conclusion.

In terms of English (or Scottish - we've lived in both ) villages though, I'm not sure I completely agree.

In large parts of the South East, South West and some parts of the sothern Midlands, the villages are largely dormitories for London. Monday-Friday they're often deserted during the day as people commute off.

However, in the evenings and the weekends, a lot of people make a lot of effort to try and create some sort of participative community spirit. The pub is often central to this but even small villages have a plethora of clubs and associations. Rambling, badminton, bowls, WI, fishing clubs - I could go on.

In a tiny rural village in Perthsire (c800 people) there was a golf club, a badminton club, two well-frequented pubs, fishing clubs, a wallking club etc etc etc.  We've found similar sort of activities wherever we've lived whether the village was a 'true' rural community or one of the sometimes slightly more artrifical dormitory types in the home counties.

Now you can see this all cynically as being false and plastic - a rather sad attempt to re-create some sort of 19th century idyll that in fact never really existed to begin with or you can see it all as genuine and sincere. You can also choose to ignore it or participate - that's up to the individual.

My point is that if you're the type of person that really enjoys that sort of environment and "integrating" with it when you move, then in France you're going to find a bit of a shock becaus it doesn't (generally) exist. The reasons for that are those you quoted above.

I have seen some new arrivals really struggle with this as they charged about trying to 'join in'.  The point is that there's often little tangible to join in with.

Cheers   

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I was officially tested for 'integration level' last week as part of an application for nationality. They asked:

Do you have a job?

What language do you use at work?

What language do you speak at home?

Are you a member of any clubs or associations?

Is your social circle French/foreign/mixed?

Which tells you more or less what the French government considers to be 'integrated'. Though I suspect the real question was 'are you likely to walk around in a binliner all day and never talk to anyone?'

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misplacedperson says: 'are you likely to walk around in a binliner all day and never talk to anyone?'

Not quite a binliner, mpp, but certainly a fine mesh net that covers my whole head and shoulders all day and certainly all night as well when I'm on the Compostelle.

Can't take the chance of being bitten by insects and having to return home in ignominy.

Might or might not talk to people; it all depends.  Only likely to talk to Gemonimo.....

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[quote user="cooperlola"]

Francelover, what kind of English village are you referring to where people are constantly organising coffee mornings and fetes and popping into each other's houses all the time?  It's not the English village life I knew because none of the people who actually did the work could afford to live in them and all the people who could pay the house prices travelled miles to work every day so were rarely involved in village life (whatever that is) - ourselves included, I admit.

Thus I honestly don't think French rural life is all that different from what I expected.  The biggest differences I notice are that the locals can afford to live here and thus don't tend to move away; their relatives often live locally so they have a ready-made social circle which doesn;t have to involve their neighbours, they often take all their holidays - if they can afford a holiday at all - in Francophone countries and they struggle financially so don't have a great cultural life. 

[/quote]

 

I tend to agree. I spent a part of my young life with my Uncle and Aunty in a Wiltshire village of some 500 souls, home of my father's family since at least the C16.

Social life for Aunty was the weekly meeting of the Women's Institute, while Uncle went to the pub across the road for the skittles. That was about it. Infrequent visitors to the house were almost exclusively family. God knows there were enough of them; my grandfather had 14 children, many living locally. I don't think they needed any more.

I attended infants school, (run by another aunt) and the primary school in the village. While at school I don't recall going into the house of any friends, except maybe for the odd party.

We bought a house in the village from my Uncle in the late 60's and lived there for varying periods between our travels for about 10 years. The population had increased considerably with "up-country" people moving into mainly new houses (it's now about 1200), but most of the original lot remembered at least my name.

We passed the time of day and chatted with other villagers, and went to the one of the pubs on Saturday evening, but the only house we ever went into, apart from family (and not even all of theirs), was our nextdoor neighbours'. They were from Weybridge, and were into joining and getting into every possible new activity in the village, many of these being created by other newcomers. This seemed to be essential to their dreams of living in the country. Actually, there were various complaints by some of the old guard about this; they felt that e.g. the Church and School were being taken over, and they were being pushed aside.

We walked into the pub one evening after I'd been away for some time and I was taken aback to be greeted by a young lady who had been sitting with a group near the bar. "Welcome to *****" she said "How long have you been here?" I'm afraid I couldn't help replying "Well, I just got home today, but my family's been here for about 500 years"

We have been in this, the second French village we have lived in, for ten years. Population is about 450, and it doesn't seem a lot different from Wiltshire. - Well, less "outsiders" here, and no pub..

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I agree with most of what has been said on this topic, plus, I think the french expect us to mix more with other british families. Birds of a feather flock together etc.

But to be able to speak their language a bit, and be polite and friendly with them and respect their laws and customs.

As french immigrants seem to do in Britain.

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Read the whole of this thread with a French friend staying over with us (and who lived in the UK for some time) - and we were really surprised about some of the generalisations made by some. We've had a good discussion about it and will report back at some time.

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[quote user="Christine Animal"]

And he's had so much of it that he can't spell any more.  Mind once you have managed to integrate that you don't disintegrate !  I know I am.

 

[/quote]

Sorry about spelling but

I speak only with francophiliacs; I hear only francophiliacs, I sea only francophiliacs.[:)]

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  • 3 weeks later...
So funny - Cooperlola and Sweets we should form a society - except that actually we wouldn't want to, come to think of it!

Like you I am very happily unintegrated.

Now that doesn't mean that I don't have the odd chat with neighbours over fence and that they don't feel free to come around to borrow things as required (wheel-barrow and extension lead being last two) - though why a FARMER wouldn't have either of these two is a mystery to me.

Yes, we might even be invited into their rather mucky yard for a beer if we pass while they are drinking one, but that's about it.

On the other hand we then have the other french neighbours (ex-Paris) who would happily live in my house if I let them, ditto our other English neighbours.

Easily resolved though, because I send OH around their houses instead, as he is quite happy to sit and talk rubbish for days on end.

I guess everyone finds their own level they are happy with. What I do miss however is a good woman friend; no-one that I have met here comes even close to being someone I would want to impart that category to, albeit there are a couple of women on the forum who sound quite promising were they in the neighbourhood !
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[quote user="londoneye"]What I do miss however is a good woman friend; no-one that I have met here comes even close to being someone I would want to impart that category to, albeit there are a couple of women on the forum who sound quite promising were they in the neighbourhood ![/quote]

Well, I 'll second that part of your message!!

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Like you, Londoneye, I miss my really good women friends, more so since my sister died just after I came over here so I can't chat to her on the phone any more.  I have a couple of friends over here who lived near us back in the UK but I don't have enough in common with them to have a really good chat.   My single neighbour is great company but we can't have enough of a moan about husbands!  I too get the impression that I'd have a good laugh with some of the women on here but nobody is really geographically close enough even to meet occasionally.

Maybe you should join Sweets and me when we do our Thelma and Louise thing (we have yet to decide who's going to get Brad Pitt.) 

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So there I was on July 14th in the house of some German friends, all of us having pizza: 3 Brits, 2 Germans, 3 Dutch, a Libyan and 4 French. Oddly, and for once, the common language was French, with only one of the 3 Brits and the Libyan struggling a bit.

I happened to remark that it was a bit of an odd gathering for the date, but was assured by the 89-year-old French lady that no-one ever does anything much on the 14 July anyway, so it wasn't all that strange. If she hadn't joined us, she would have been with her extended family. The Dutchman sitting next to me (who has lived in France for well over 30 years, and in his present house and village for well over 20 of them) was explaining to me how much these "international" get-togethers meant to him and his wife. They've lived in France almost longer than they lived in Holland, have many good friends in the village and socialise with them. BUT, he explained, when it comes to certain periods of the year, special dates etc., his French friends are first and foremost going to socialise with their own extended family and close friends, and he and his wife just aren't considered part of that "circle". It's not that they aren't "integrated": their son has French nationality and did his military service, both of their daughters married Frenchmen.....It's not that they aren't "accepted", either. They're well-known and thought well of in the village. In the end, though, they're still going to be sitting home alone at certain times because they won't be invited to join in with French friends at certain regular celebrations.

However, thanks to being able to socialise with other non-French, they and others who occasionally want some form of social interaction with other people at least have that opportunity. And I think that applied to most of those at that particular gathering.

In the end (and I've said this before) I don't think you can integrate yourself or decide when you're integrated. It's the people you're trying to integrate with who will decide when you've "arrived". I've also said before that I strongly suspect there are more non-French nationals lying awake at night worrying whether they're integrated that there are French people lying awake wondering if their Brit neighbours have achieved that coveted state.

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I can see that Betty.

Over 20 years in a village and over 30 in France and to not be invited, triste innit.

Was it good fortune that we were 'invited'? Did the effort we made to meet new people and make new friends make the difference? For we still have very good friends in France.
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I got the extanded family bit given to me on a plate, curtesy of the missus. From this side it's not all rosy integration stuff.

I can look at the calender at the beginning of the year, and know exactly where I'm going to be, with whom, what we'll be doing, and what we're eating, on certain dates. Sometimes it makes us want to scream with boredom. Unfortunately, there is no "politically" acceptable get out. All the family thinks the same, but no one dare break the code, I'd assume it's the same in other French families, it's just duty, however unwanted it is, and however much you dislike other family members.

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Too right, wooly, and hi, idun, nice to see you back.

Yes, it's quite a country thing, although stuff clearly varies from family to family. Our neighbours have lived all their lives in our village. He is an only child, she has about 9 brothers and sisters. They lost one son tragically young, and have another son, daughter-in-law and 2 grandkids living just opposite them. Briefly, they all work together on their farm, but last year saw a huge falling-out because the son and d-i-l wanted the parents to retire and leave them the farm, and the parents simply can't afford to. They stopped speaking to the parents, and all communication was through their accountant. However, they were then telling me that their grandkids have never spent a night sleeping at their house, they've never been asked to babysit...they don't socialise....quite sad, really. Especially considering they live less than 50 metres apart.

OTOH, one of my BF's in France who's a very young 70-ish and has 5 kids, born and raised in Paris of Franco-Danish parents and twice married (once to a Brit) spends almost all her time entertaining, or being entertained by her family: yet always has time for anyone. And I mean anyone. She looks after between 3 and 5 of her grandkids all summer, weekends she can have up to 20 people living in her house, anyone who turns up just grabs another plate and more cutlery and joins in. Last Sunday we were eating lunch in her garden with two of her children, her daughter-in-law and 4 grandkids. My OH remarked that the setting, the table and so on looked just like those stereotypical films and photos of the jolly French people having lunch at the long wooden table in the sun that you always see on TV or in French lifestyle magazines. "No it's not" they said. "For one thing, the food's all wrong: we'd be having a big joint of meat with the proper starter and cheese and dessert if it was, and we're having salads and melon"  "Yeah, but it's the big 'family' thing that's so French" said OH. "That's not because we're French" said one of the daughters "it's because we're Jewish!!" Which, although none of them has a religious bone in their bodies, is actually true. You couldn't find a more widely-travelled and cosmopolitan family, and you'd probably be hard-pushed to find a bigger family: the grandkids came to me to learn a bit of English this summer and were telling me they have 40 cousins and second-cousins. But I really do feel that in this case they spend time together because they genuinely LIKE one another, not for any "stereotypical" reasons.

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