France is really in a mess at the moment.

[alittlebitfrench]

Peeps harp on about Brexit and are very vocal about how bad the UK has become. Is it really that bad ? Is it really worse than France ? I don't think so.

Does anyone actually watch French news, or pick up a local paper and read it ?

Jeeesus.....France is in a mess at the moment.

What a depressing state of affairs France has become.

[woolybanana]

I watch it, I read it, I live it. Nothing new, France has been up shute creek for years. This is normal.

[alittlebitfrench]

Hmmmmm.

I would say it is very bad at the moment. Worse than it has ever been.

Those in charge have lost complete control of the country. I don't really think they will ever get it back.

It is very bad in France at the moment.

It is very depressing.

[woolybanana]

How is it worse than ever?

[idun]

Since SKY have stopped TV5 Monde, I have to say that I have not looked at french news as much as I used to. So thanks for the reminder.

This article caught my eye:

https://www.20minutes.fr/economie/2640355-20191030-2018-france-reste-pays-fiscalite-plus-elevee-union-europeenne

So people who move to France with the benefit of S1's for medical care are privileged in comparison to french people. As most french people always pay into the system, even as retirees.

I have seen France in some right messes. I think that the most frightening times for me were when Pasqua was the Interior Minister...... he was ruthless.

If it is a mess now, to your knowledge, have any tv programs been stopped during air time and then cancelled??? Wish I could remember what one in particular was called, but I was watching and demonstrating students were being interviewed and then a blank screen and cancelled. That tv info program was on every week and then I didn't see the journalist on air for several years after that. Censorship was often used in my early days in France in the 1980's, technical faults when the screen went blank, and the reporting never to be seen again. As my friends used to say.....'c'est comme ca' and shrug.

I don't think that France is any worse, as wooly says, it has always been on the edge, on the verge of things.

ALBF, daresay your kids are too young as yet, but if your kids end up like mine and wanting to change the world, then wait till they start going to manifs.......... mine were never beaten up by the Companie Republicaines de Securite, but they had friends who were. I was always relieved when they got home.

[PaulT]

Still, look on the brightside the conditions are not such as in Hong Kong or Venezula.

[Lehaut]

Have lived here for 23 years and find it little different to when we first came apart from a general rise at all levels of "incivilité". This is of course speaking from the privileged position as a retiree. I read the local paper nearly every morning on line, and other French national papers. The problem with the unnatural appetite for constant news these days imo is that people gravitate to the headline grabbing bad stuff. Hunters chasing a stag into someone house sells more than hunters reducing the wild boar population to help farmers. Reading this type of news gives a poor impression in every town and country. The papers here are full of shootings, rape, police brutality, wife beatings, immigrants, uncontrolled drug gangs without touching the weekly manifestations. And this is Nantes. You would not want to live here based solely on news reports. We walk miles every week though the town and outskirts and feel perfectly safe. Often people of all ages smile and say "Bonjour"

Just come back from a week in Jerusalem. Pushed to see anyone even smile there, the best conversation we had with a local was with a bus driver!

[Patf]

Jerusalem bus drivers are well known for their sociability.

ALBF - I'm not surprised.

Maybe it's mainly as Lehaut says, the media and the shock/horror effect. But also it's real, town and city people have lost the desire to care for their neighbours.

[woolybanana]

Well, not in this village Patf, at least, not so far. Nor have they lost the art of gossiping. Let me give you an example: a house recently sold and was bought to be rented out. Within a couple of days I knew who had bought it and what they had paid.

Then a tenant arrives, well, within a day I knew who she was, why renting and the rest.

Oh, and people do help each other when a need is perceived, even if it is just keeping an eye open. When I busted my toe a couple of years ago, the number of offers of help was amazing.

But then this is La France Profonde, so derided by albf - perhaps that should be La France Profaned!t

[alittlebitfrench]

This is not really a rural/city town debate WB.

The problems exist everywhere.

Did anyone read about the young kid in Lyon trying to burn himself to death outside his university ? Something over debt, fees and future prospects.

If that happened in in the UK the papers would be in overdrive.

Imagine the British fire brigade having a fight/standoff with the police on Oxford street.

It happened in France a couple of weeks ago and everyone turns a blind eye and talks about Brexit.

I don't know where we are going with all this.

[woolybanana]

The climate emergency tried to block London and there was some violence but the police seem to have been well up to dealing with it. However, UK does not seem to have the black blocs that France has. They are there, or course, and may show their teeth if Corbyn loses the election.

[Lehaut]

"Did anyone read about the young kid in Lyon trying to burn himself to death outside his university ? Something over debt, fees and future prospects."

Have been particularly interested in this story as both our boys are still at Uni, albeit only one in France. Our eldest shared with a pal in Toulouse during his Masters at N7 there. His room mate took on the responsibility in his head to sort out all the bad stories he heard and read in the papers. Obviously this is impossible and he began a spiral into depression. His pals gathered round and did an "intervention", got him professional help and after a year out, he passed his Masters and is now doing his PhD.

From what I have read in the papers concerning the student who set fire to himself, he had his bourse reduced/taken away because he had failed his second year of Social Sciences twice and had enrolled for a third attempt. CNOUS (on our behalf as taxpayers) applied the rules and took the necessary action, as is well known by students. The lad according to some was extremely intelligent and a member of the far left political parties.

Most people will just take away the headline and use the story to reinforce a bad impression of the system. It takes a great deal of effort to get an understanding of any newspaper story. Our media and politicians use the "hose pipe of lies" system. So much they publish/say is untrue it would take forever to refute them and the media is not interested in that.

Your repeating the story without justifying it and explaining both sides just adds to the problem of false news.

https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2019/11/13/est-il-vrai-qu-un-etudiant-peut-perdre-sa-bourse-s-il-triple-une-annee_1763111

[alittlebitfrench]

You are right so far as there was always going to be more to the story.

But you can't take away from the fact that news in France is quite grim.

It is very difficult to turn on the TV to watch the news because you will know that you will get depressed. Well... apart from TF1 at lunchtime where life is great.

Can't wait for the snowy pics this lunchtime.

[idun]

When we moved to a university city in 1981, there were regular reports of rapes on the campus.

In the city there were shootings and killings on a fairly regular basis.

We were shot at as we were on our way out to eat. Husband was attacked in the street. (sons' have been since too). Friends were shot at.... a long story that one, and sort of beggar's belief, but quite true and very frightening.

All our cars were damaged by other drivers when they were parked, including our brand new one, no one left a note. (Last visit our car was hit three times!)

Wish I could remember what was 'said' at the time, more risk of mugging in the UK and burglary in France.... or the other way round. 

This is France to me, it is a heady mix of polite 'bonjours' etc and being shoved out of the way in a queue by the person who had just so polite, even if I knew them, rather than the 'general bonjour one says.

It has an undertone of lawlessness, which my french friends assure me that the government are fully aware of, because the french will only be pushed so far, and then will hit the barracades. How this has passed onto the young, I do not know, but my generation talked to me like this.

And it has always been a bit of a strange mess, with over secure fonctionnaires who too often don't give a hoot.

Any worse than it was, I cannot see it myself, as no one has told me that things are that much worse as yet, apart from prices, which everyone I know moan and whinge about all the time.