Jump to content
Complete France Forum

Another beheading!


Recommended Posts

I don't know what I would do for the best if I had young kids.

The UK's problems seem to me to be mostly about social injustice and greed and moral dishonesty. It's frustrating but not scary, a lot of people don't like what the country is turning into and everybody grumbles but mostly that's all.

France's problems are on a different level and I think they are scarier.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

France is scarier on all levels.

I have no idea why so many Brits want to move to France. Greed does come in to it to be fair. They would not move to France for a smaller house. Which most people in France live in.

I would not personally move to France now. This is going to take generations to sort out..

You know I am a big Paris fan ET...but even Paris has gone to the dogs. Im not going back any time soon.

We need Chriac to pull us all together and sort this mess out.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You don't know why 'so many Brits...move to France'.   Think we've covered that many times;  more space, less crowded towns and cities, warmer climate (well mostly) - slower pace of life.
All things which are regarded as contributing to 'quality of life' as measured by the UN/WHO.
Problems with Islam are world-wide, and long running.
Look at history - remember the Gates of Vienna.
Islam has not progressed - it is unable to do so.
It is a 6th/7th century cult, which demeans women, hates christians, jews, homosexuals....
Any 'religion' which promises 70 virgins to any martyr is rather weird; imagine if someone started such a cult today - with such a promise - they'd be laughed at.
As for 'generations to sort out' - it will NOT happen - it can never be 'sorted out' unless this 'cult' can be brought into the 21st century - which is not possible; read the Koran to understand why.

I am very pessimistic about the future of western christian civilisation - it does not look good.
And our family descendants will rather hate us for allowing this to happen - because we have - under the threats of being called 'rascist' or the liberals who think that Islam is wonderful (la la land !!).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am going to pick you up on two points Chessie.

Firstly, France is a very crowded place where people live and work. There is NO slower pace of life in France. That is a cliché invented by the British when describing France.

Work wise...France is a shît hole of a country to work in.

2) The problem is not religion. Or Islam as you have identified.

The problem is Men.

Men are the greatest threat to this planet. Think about that.

What France needs now, is a woman president. Obviously not MLP. Because she is borderline woman.

But France needs a woman president...desperately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry 'LittleBit' - but on numbers per sq.kilometre France is a lot less crowded than the UK - do please check the figures; France has the same population (or less) than the UK - and a much, much larger land mass.
So the 'space' comment is completely correct.

As for your comment about 'men' - well, yes, I do have to agree with you there to an extent.
All religions have been established by men.   All men have 'set the rules' which puts women in second place.
Maybe we should do away with all 'religions' and go back to the Celtic ways of worshipping Earth Mother.  Or the peaceful outlook of the Budhists.
But it'll never happen because it's the men in charge - and they won't give up that power.
Maybe the asteroid predicted in 80 years time will wipe out most of mankind, and the earth can start again.  This time Giai will know not to allow the neanderthals to become too successful - maybe wipe them out with a virus or something...........!!
Chessie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ALBF says

I have no idea why so many Brits want to move to France. Greed does

come in to it to be fair. They would not move to France for a smaller

house. Which most people in France live in.

So all of us who have moved to France are greedy and want to live in bigger houses?

Normally I would not deign to answer yet another of your derisory and insulting rants.  But I just wish you would sometimes pause to reflect on what you are going to say before sounding off.

If you have "no idea why so many Brits want to move to France", why then do you proceed with your unsubstantiated allegations?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ Mint

Why do people quote/take posts out of context ?

I said "for some greed comes into it'.

Yes bigger houses, land, and swimming pools comes into it for Brits moving to France. The 'France' bit does not often count.

I don't see them fighting for France. Too busy complaining about their neighbours not wearing a mask.

Don't you start having a go at ALBF. It will only get worse with lockdown. BIG Smile.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sure Chessie is correct about the reasons why so many Brits move to France. The space, the weather, the perceived lifestyle, and I will add the cheap property. I wonder how many think about the cultural differences before they move, or indeed even after they've moved.

And before people get upset, I am not saying this applies to everyone by any means. But, from comments I see on forums, I do think that in some cases it does apply.

I first started spending time in France in the early 60s. We used to stay with a French family that my mother was very close to, the background is that she would probably have married into it if the war hadn't come along when it did and instead she stayed in the UK and met my dad. The parents used to treat her like a daughter and us kids like grandchildren. I loved the time I spent there. I suppose France was a lot more foreign to Brits in those days when travel wasn't as quick and easy as it is now. As I grew up I felt the disconnect between the time I spent in France being treated as part of a French family, and the rest of the year that I spent in England. As a kid I it seemed there were different expectations, different rules, different assumptions, different horizons, and I always felt I would have had a whole different life and been a different person if I'd grown up in France.

Since then I think familiarity has bred contempt in Brits, they don't bother to get to know France or think whether there might be differences in mindset, they just go there. It seems strange to me that the UK makes such a fuss about how being a member of the EU makes countries lose their national identity, yet France (I think) does have a stronger national identity that the UK but Brits aren't interested.

Probably I am making too much of this but it has never felt quite right to me that people leave this whole intangible side of things out of the equation when they decide to move because to me it is important.

But... I am feeling more and more that I belong to a previous era and things that always seemed important to me don't seem to matter any more.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Euro - interesting post.  Possibly 2 things have contributed to you feeling you 'belong to a different era' - hate to say this, friend, but you do, you know !!

Possibly one of the reasons why France felt different way back when, is that it was still a Catholic country with Catholic influences - regardless of what the French state 'said' - there was still a Catholic feeling.  One only has to drive around the countryside to see the crosses everywhere - which I found quite amazing when we first moved here.
Secondly, I think the common market/ eu has a lot to do with the feeling that 'Well France is the same as the UK' - after all, they have the BigMacs don't they !!!
Once visitors could enter a country without needing a passport to be stamped, or to obtain a visa - the whole 'different culture' had less of an impact.   After all, we're told that France is a civilised country; it has french cuisine (which we were brain-washed into thinking was better than British !); and France had 'culture' didn't it ?  So it was going to be similar to Britain wasn't it ? !!

So from my perspective, yes I knew France was 'different' - I looked forward to enjoying the difference.   But due to the eu we now have much the same road signs, we're now being encouraged to use metric, we have the same shops in the UK as in France, we drive the same cars (with the left/right change of course), but in a lot of ways there has been a 'harmonisation' of many things.  

But to be fair, things now, today, are indeed different in France than they were back in 2000 - we've moved on 20 years.  

Whatever we knew, or experienced, or understood 20 years ago has radically changed.   Don't you think the French feel their lives have changed quite a bit over 20 years.

But let's not get away from the appalling violent acts - which indeed, because of France's colonial past, is becoming a far bigger problem in France than the UK.  Not that that's any consolation;  can't help feeling we're all in for bigger trouble ahead.

Chessie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chessie wrote "Secondly, I think the common market/ eu has a lot to do with the feeling that 'Well France is the same as the UK'"

Absolutely, that is what I was trying to say.

But Brits seem to apply this thinking to France more than to anywhere else except maybe Spain.

I think most Brits would feel that Germany, the Netherlands, Italy etc are more furrin' that France, and for Eastern Europe even more so. No visas, same road signs pretty much, same cars, same Big Macs, but how many Brits are rushing to move to Germany or Belgium before the end of transition?

Yes France has changed tremendously of course, and it is a good point what you say about the Catholic influence and the roadside calvaries everywhere, that was certainly one of the things that impressed itself on me as "French". But I suppose that is also part of my point. A country is what it is today because of its history. Cultures evolve, sometimes things become more firmly rooted over the years and sometimes there is a reaction against them and there is a conscious decision to uproot them. France and the UK will never be the same because their histories are so different. The French Revolution for instance, when Macron says Vive la France, Vive la République I think it has a real resonance with many French people whereas there are probably Brits who think How ridiculous and pompous he sounds, saying that (if they even listen). And since then every leader and every major event and conflict has left its mark on the national collective mindset, right up to the Gilets Jaunes and Je Suis Charlie and now this.

I think newcomers to a country need to be a bit aware of and sensitive to a country's history to appreciate why it is as it is today. Living in a country but looking at it from an outsider's viewpoint all the time must be confusing I think, saying that I am not claiming to understand France but I respect the difference and I think that is a start.

So now the UK is getting hysterical because Corby has been suspended from the Labour Party, and France is being hit by unspeakable atrocities. What a world.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Euro - just a small addition.
When you refer to '..most Brits...feel Germany, Netherlands ... more furrin' -
is that possibly to do with the fact that French is taught far more often as a second language in the UK, rather than German or Spanish ?
Learn a foreign language at school, learn about the way of life, go on school visits - 'to help learn the language' - must influence British school children to feel more 'comfortable' with France - and it is closer to the UK than anywhere else.   Easy to drive onto a ferry, and off the other end into France rather than other european countries.
After all Spain and Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland were more for holidays weren't they.

But 20 years ago I never thought I'd see a burka style swim-suit for women being worn on the beach , did you ?
Chessie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chessie wrote: "20 years ago I never thought I'd see a burka style swim-suit for women being worn on the beach , did you ?"

No I never did Chessie. And what's more, to this day I never have !

I lead a sheltered life dontcha know...

Re learning a foreign language, yes probably but I think it's proximity more than anything, after all why is French taught more than German or Spanish ? (actually I think some schools teach Spanish not French now don't they?)

During confinement I have been catching up on things I always said I would do one day but never really thought I would ever get round to, and one of those things is, watching my way through the entire set of BBC Shakespeare DVDs. I'm on the Kings at present, and it does make you think what a cat and dog relationship France and England have had with each other for centuries, they just can't stop squabbling but so closely intertwined..
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well think back to 1066 - from then on the Celts were banished, and the elites only spoke French !!
There are so many words in the English language whose original roots are french; similarly with Latin and Greek, yes, but it is surprising, looking at the written French, how many similar words there are in both languages.
As for cat and dog - like brother and sister in a family; jealousy, rivalry, squabbling - because there's more similarity than otherwise !!
Love France, love the French; try to understand it all - part of life's journey isn't it ?
What do you think of the bbc Shakespeare dvds - I tried with Shakespeare but I'm not intelligent enough to stay the course.....

(Wish I could watch DVDs at the moment; sadly my early stage Alzy OH has ripped out the satellite connection, and destroyed the power surge socket - so we have no tv, no dvd, no nothing).
I really do have cabin fever...
and I'm side-tracking again - sorry.

Chessie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]France is scarier on all levels.

I have no idea why so many Brits want to
move to France. Greed does come in to it to be fair. They would not move to France for a smaller house. Which most people in France live in.

I would not personally move to France now. This is going to take generations to sort out..

You know I am a big Paris fan ET...but even Paris has gone to the dogs. Im not going back any time soon.

We need Chriac to pull us all together and sort this mess out.[/quote]

There ALBF, I have put your post here in full so that you can't accuse me of quoting you out of context.

Don't worry about our battles here.  You rant away and I will flatten you as I think fit[:P]  Go on, ALBF, you don't upset me but you might well do others.  Do try and grow up just a little, eh?  At the regressive rate in which you are going, your children will ALL soon overtake you in commonsense and adult behaviour[B][:-))]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I knew it would end up being ET's fault !

@Chessie, I am enjoying watching the Shakespeares. Some I really get into and some not so much but there aren't any that I haven't watched to the end. I won't remember them all of course, I've watched so many now I'm already getting confused which character is in which play, but there are plenty of lines and scenes that will stick in my head. Sorry to hear you are video-less, I don't have TV but I would very much miss DVDs.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Si nous sommes attaqués, une fois encore, c’est pour les valeurs qui sont les nôtres, pour notre goût de la liberté, pour cette possibilité sur notre sol de croire librement et de ne céder à aucun esprit de terreur.

"Je le dis avec beaucoup de clarté une fois encore aujourd'hui : nous n'y cèderons rien."

WE WILL CONCEDE NOTHING.

It is very rare that I commend the words of M Macron, but Well Said Monsieur le Président.

And I am delighted to learn that the number of troops to be deployed for the protection of 'key French sites' is to be more than doubled to 7000.

On past record they do seem to have a laudably good aim.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...