The 'Real' France

[NormanH]

is a phrase that keeps cropping up.

This happened in Nîmes, but it is the sort of thing that happens all over the cities in the South (such as my own belle Béziers)

" l'atmosphère de ce quartier paupérisé, rongé par le trafic de drogue et

la présence croissante d'individus liés à des mouvances radicalisées de

l'Islam."

http://www.midilibre.fr/2017/09/02/tirs-de-kalachnikov-dans-un-snack-a-nimes-couchez-vous-couchez-vous,1554802.php

Rather removed from 'the French Dream' [:-))]

[andyh4]

But isn't this the wonderful vibrant city life that ALBF always tells us nincompoops that we idiots living in the back of beyond (or anyone so thinking might be a good idea) should be enjoying?

[alittlebitfrench]

I think what Norman is alluding to is that France is portrayed in the UK (particularly the magazines and websites) as some kind of utopia. The French Dream. What is that exactly ?

And Andy, I think you are more likely to be a victim of crime (particularly burglaries) in rural areas than city areas. It is just that all the perpetrators live in city areas if you know what I mean.

Also, the French media are less prone to report crime in the same way the UK does. If you read the UK papers or watch the telly you get the impression that the UK is a crime ridden cesspit. Is France any different ?

[EuroTrash]

I don't see a great mystery in any of this. Isn't it just, that as we all know there are places in every Western country that are not exactly dream land, they range from scary no-go areas like Brixton in the 80s where stabblings and muggings are an everyday event and literally the police dare not go without their riot gear on, to scruffy seedy depressing areas where 99% of the population is unemployed and nobody takes care of their homes and gardens or terraces and the streets smell of sick and pi55.

Surely the point is simply that in France it's easier to find and be able to afford to live in areas where you're not within 100s of km of any of this so you don't have to see it. Find somewhere affordable in the UK that's hundreds of miles away from a metropolis. What's wrong with wanting to escape to somewhere nice?

It's easy enough to find crime figures for France. In my dept most type of crime is lower than average for France - violence is 5.88% (per 1000 inhabitants) compared to 8.65% for all of France, damage to property is 19.98% compared to 30.56, misc is 3.19 compared to 4.4 - and then there's "délinquence économique et financière" which is 0.12% for France, 0.15% for the region, and - 4.4% for my department !!! so apparently we're all on the fiddle here!

http://www.linternaute.com/actualite/delinquance - ALBF might be disappointed to see that Dordogne is one of the lowest crime areas in France.

[Chancer]

How can you kid yourself that you are "hundreds of kms from any of this" when your figures show you have a one in 5 risk of having your property damaged?

 

ALBF is right, the countryside and the halfwits that live there are easy pickings, sure there are thieves and they are usually dumb and lazy enough to do it on their own doorstep but the career ones, why would they want to live there when their metier enables them to live somewhere decent and largely free from crime?

 

I live in an area like Norman does, my local rag is chocked full of petty burglaries but is usually alcohol or drug fuelled domestic violence, its only when a proper burglary or a string of them happens and the culprits are caught and discovered to be outsiders that people get outraged, they actually expect to rob eacch other.

 

And ALBF, has someone hacked your account or have you had an epiphany?

[mint]

ET, I agree completely with what you have said here.  I read about the "ugly" sides in both countries and indeed in many other countries.

I, too, don't want to live in the midst of ugliness and, TBF, I don't think I am streetwise enough to live anywhere remotely lively and too full of "diversity", whatever variation that very useful word means.

Haven't researched statistics for crime in the Dordogne but we had a burglary 4 or 5 years ago in our village.  It was the weekend of our fete patronale and, of course, everybody said it was an outsider visiting or perhaps even one of the temporary fairground staff!  More convenient and less worrying for everybody and, AFAIK, there has been no burglaries since that one.

We ourselves have a front door with a busted lock, at least 5 years now and I haven't got round to finding a serrurier to fix it.  As it is one of those large aluminium glass doors, it seems that I need someone who installs this kind of lock to change it and it might even be that we will have to change the whole door.  So............one keeps putting it off and putting it off and it is permanently on the "to do" list[+o(][:$]

All things being equal, you choose where you live and if, like many on here, you are lucky enough to have a REAL choice (work, affordability, interest), why not live where you are happy and sheltered?   

[Chancer]

scruffy seedy depressing areas where 99% of the population is unemployed and nobody takes care of their homes and gardens or terraces and the streets smell of sick and pi55.

Thats what greets me every time I step out of my door yet my village and the neighbouring town has the highest employment and household income in the region because of the Airbus factory who find it impossible to recruit and/or retain people from other areas of France to work here.

 

And that is why my short term rentals do so well.

[BritinBretagne]

Yes, we have rural crime and these days and most people lock their doors when going out these days but I'd still rather live in the countryside than in a town. If I want an urban fix every now and again large towns are never far away.

Slightly related, I was amazed by the increase in one 'specialist' area of rural crime in the UK. Apparently since Land Rover Defenders went out of production the number stolen, mainly recent models, has increased exponentially. It us presumed that they are broken up and the parts sold to the huge worldwide market.

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-kent-38697243/land-rover-thefts-rise-after-defender-production-ends

Perhaps this is a Government initiative for post Brexit Britain.

[Patf]

I think some of the explanation for the 'rose colored spectacles' is that people who think like that have never actually lived in France for long . Or can't read french so don't read the local papers.

Our local paper Depeche du Midi, always includes some  murders, burglaries, assaults, drug related stories, sexual attacks and paedophile stories etc.

Just like everywhere else [:(]

There's a small difference though - France is such a big country that in some spots you can actually feel you're isolated from it all. Whereas in the UK, especially tiny little England, it's "in your face" all the time.

[Alan Zoff]

Going by the number of fatal accidents reported in La Montagne each day, I suspect many would-be thieves have killed themselves on the roads before they can commit crimes in this part of the Auvergne.

[EuroTrash]

"How can you kid yourself that you are "hundreds of kms from any of this" when your figures show you have a one in 5 risk of having your property damaged?"

That's the figure for the department. My town is too small to have statistics quoted, but I looked at a couple of the larger towns in the area and they are above the departmental average so obviously other places must be correspondingly lower. Of course there is crime here, I have experienced it, what I am saying is that I don't live in an environment like the original quote about that area of Nîmes (actually I like Nîmes) and although obviously the big towns round here, of which there aren't many - Lisieux, Argentan, that's about it really - have their scruffy areas, none come anywhere near that kind of environment. Maybe Caen does but I haven't seen it and Caen is an hour's drive away. So from one year to the next I don't get my face rubbed in it like I did when I lived in London and West Yorkshire and had areas like that virtually on my doorstep.

[alittlebitfrench]

You make a valid point ET.

But, rural France comes alive at night when I guess you are tucked up in bed. I said before, that I used to play Pool for a team every week all over central France and would leave bars and what not very late in the night and see all sorts of scary things. Quite happy when I got home. Drugs, fights (mostly gypsies) pissed drugged up bored kids on scooters and in cars trying to kill themselves and others.

Even played in Normandy a few times. Although that was at lunchtime and the players and the rest were all ready shît faced before we arrived.

Would I bring my children up in rural France.....ummmm no. Biggest reason we moved.

[Chancer]

When I was romancing a girl in a town about 20kms away I would often be travelling to her place late at night or returning in the early hours of the morning, what I regularly saw on the roads shook me to the core and I am an ex race driver, cars full of hoons completely off their faces, many a time a vehicle has pulled out to overtake in a severe exaggerated motion to meet me head on and I have had to drive off the road on several occasions, my reflexes and reactions saved me but luck can only last for so long, I regularly see cars that have left the road and rolled over several times, dont know if the driver was the guilty party or the innocent victim, all the passengers would be innocent.

 

It was much worse at weekends when the town kids would head to the remote discos just as I once did thinking there was less chance of getting pulled over, either that or heading to/from Belgium to score drugs.

 

Whenever I follow a car obviously being driven by someone completely intoxicated it is usually a middle aged man, when the Gendarmes do roadside checks from my car park in the day those who fail the alcohol test and are carted away are usually women, I cycle past the lycée to the gym classes and one of them co-incides with the pick up time, the G-men did a contrôle there and I saw them having to deal with 2 seperate completely pi55ed, agitated and aggressive mothers, on my return there were 6 vehicles there awaiting recovery.

 

Safest place is in the home!

[Alan Zoff]

This is for the most part a lovely part of France in which to live. The people are friendly, courteous and welcoming and home feels very safe. But when an Auvergnat gets behind the wheel of a car, he or she takes on a completely different persona which makes me a little anxious for family and friends when they drive here to visit. As for the bikers, well, they are downright suicidal.

[richard51]

Totally agree that driving in rural France ( Dordogne in my case) is downright dangerous, especially on the narrow, hardly used roads. Think I have already said that the deaths of younger locals far exceed those I have heard of in the UK.

Do disagree with Chancer about passengers being innocent. What are they doing in a car with a pi__ed up driver in the first place.

Sad to say but in my youth in the UK every friday we used to go to a "country pub" in the peak district and invariably the driver was over the limit whilst returning.

Glad to say that there has been a massive C change in attitudes in the UK and normal people are so anti drink-driving nowadays. My kids anyway- they are horrified at our previous attitudes.

There is one idiot exception I can think of who went to school with one of my kids and is now serving time for killing a couple whilst he was racing with friends in Wales. His daddy used to give the lad anything he wanted, including sporty cars!!

[BritinBretagne]

Would I bring my children up in rural France. Too damn right I would. The main reason I moved.

[richard51]

Getting back to the real France vers UK can I suggest that broadly rural France is similar to rural UK and similar for cities. The real issue is city vs rural in both countries.

[mint]

I've lived in rural UK and rural France and no, I see no similarity.  Small but pertinent example:  I can walk for hours in the countryside here and see nobody other than some farmer on a tractor in the distance.  I can hardly walk even in the Welsh hillside without seeing dog walkers, bike scramblers, runners, etc etc.

Have lived in cities in the UK but not in France so can't agree or disagree with this bit of your post.

[EuroTrash]

"But, rural France comes alive at night when I guess you are tucked up in bed"

It must keep tabs on me then because whenever I drive through it at unsocial hours on my way to or from the ferry, I hardly see a soul around nor a car on the road. I used to find it quite creepy.

There was an amusing incident in my little town a few years ago when a group of youths went on the rampage. They started a fire in the basement of an empty block of flats, then they set a big communal rubbish bin on fire, then they set a van on fire. Then the police chased them and caught them. In court they said "Well we just wanted to have a bit of fun for once, and there's nothing else to do round here on a Saturday night." It's true. I would have hated living somewhere like this 30 years ago. Just as I would hate living in London now. Horses for courses.

[richard51]

Rather than physical comparisons I was thinking more along societal comparisons. The large differences are between rural and city living. Its the same (roughly!!) worldwide.

[alittlebitfrench]

If you think of Amboise (which is a city)......the place reminds me of a small sleepy country town in the UK.

We where there a couple of days talking to an estate agent and asked if the British buy there. No he said, they buy about 30 kms away in the middle of nowhere because they want their big houses and more for their money.

The thing is, last year I met one of these types in Quick (Tours) who was there with his to young kids. He said that he had taken his kids out because they were crawling up the walls with nothing to do. I bet a million pounds he does not still live there.

Small/city/large French town is the same as rural living in the UK.

Rural France is the chasse, barking dogs, pain the ar^se neighbours and teenagers with nothing to do apart from getting stoned.

[BritinBretagne]

You really love pushing your point of view to gain a reaction. Face the facts, stop trying to wind people up. The people who live in the French countryside because the love the lifestyle and did what they wanted. You'd fit in well, plenty of bleating in the fields around here.

[richard51]

But he does make a good point. However small cities in UK can also be considered as similar to small cities in France. St Asaph, Bala, Betws-y-coed etc are all considered cities!

[alittlebitfrench]

@ Bit in B

I make good point. I will say it again, I have lived all over France but not once had a choice of where to live. I am talking from experience and I am not biased.

How many critical threads do you read daily (well it used to be daily) on forums about neighbours, barking dogs, la chasse, driving, etc etc etc boring snoring threads about the same old things. Funny thing is, I can relate to it because I also used to live rural and we still have a house in the rural Bourgogne. Rural France is a different country.

I live in semi countryside environment. Just happens to be 0.5km from a city. 5 mins drive or a 15 min cycle ride and I will be as rural as you......and we don't have flies !!!!

Amboise is like Petersfield. The only difference is that one is a sleepy city and one is a tiny sleepy town. Both surrounded by countryside. But they are the same in terms of the type of people that live there. Modern attitudes, socially out going.

You don't need to plonk yourself in the middle of nowhere to have a rural life in France. The question is are those who choose (especially with kids) to live 'more rural' getting more or less for their money ?

[EuroTrash]

I actually think there are different types of "countryside", just like there are different types of towns and cities. There's the farming countryside that produces crops and rears animals and feeds people, and there's the country retreat countryside where city business types go at weekends and keep their horses, or sometime actually live there and commute vast distances every day. The property prices are very different and the amenities are very different and the lifestyle is very different so I think talking about "living in the countryside" can mean very different things to different people. Living in a Cotswold village is a different experience to living in the Welsh countryside or living in the Fells. My impression is France has less of the country retreat kind of countryside, most rural areas are productive, whereas I don't know how much food production actually goes on in the Home Counties or the Cotswolds. The point being that you can compare rural UK with rural France and say it is very similar or say it is very different, it depends which particular areas you happen to be thinking of. For instance I think a lot of Brittany is comparable to a lot of Wales, I don't think it's comparable to Suffolk.

ALBF is very sweet, he doesn't wind you up on purpose

and his opinions are always interesting. He has black and white thinking and people with black and white thinking see everything as right or wrong, so when they come across a range of opinions, to them only one (ie their own opinion) can be right and all the rest are wrong. I've met several people with this syndrome and they're all lovely people, you just have to make allowances. There is no point arguing because that's how their brain works and you won't change it. He can only see things from his own point of view and he genuinely is trying to help people to avoid what he sees as a wrong choice, he doesn't have the ability to put himself in anyone else's shoes and realise that what is the right choice for ALBF would not necessarily be the right choice for BritinBretagne.