"2 in 5 English people would like to have been born in France." Really?

[Loiseau]

A French friend from the Vendee has just sent me an email in which he says:

"La presse nous apprend que 2 Anglais sur 5 auraient souhaité naître en FRANCE ?? !!"

Can this really be so?  I wouldn't have thought actually that 2 in 5 English people had *been* to France even, never mind wish they'd been born there...   And love France as I do, I certainly have never formulated such a desire.

So what proportion of those on this forum would agree with the French press on this one?

Angela

 

[Christine Animal]

I wish I had been, then I wouldn't have had all that certificat de nationalité business.  I did it years ago when we got married, then recently when I wanted to renew my carte d'identité française (which I had done several times before sans problème), they said they had no trace of me at Nantes for a birth certificate.  So I had to go all through it again, it has been hell, I even had to produce a marriage certificate of my parents-in-law who divorced in the early fifties and my mother-in-law is no longer alive!  I just went to get my carte d'identité yesterday.   [:)]

 

[Clair]

see here for complete article

PS: this is another article

PPS: why is the Amélie actress called Audrey TAUTOU in France and Audrey TATOU in England?

[Will]

It has been discussed at a certain other forum. I can't think of a more misleading sample for a survey, though as being born French would rank alongside spending the rest of my life with Cilla from Coronation Street in my worst ever dreams, I am probably biased.

Anyway, this is the text - discuss

Dépéche AFP : Lundi 9 octobre 2006
-------------------------------------------

Un Britannique sur cinq aurait préféré naître en France.

Plus d'un Britannique sur cinq aurait préféré naître en France mais, à défaut, l'Hexagone est le pays où ils préfèrent travailler et où ils souhaitent passer leur retraite, selon un sondage.

Malgré l'antipathie légendaire entretenue avec les Français, les Britanniques semblent avoir succombé au "facteur Henry", du nom du joueur du club londonien de football d'Arsenal, Thierry Henry. La plus grande visibilité de vedettes françaises au plan international, comme l'actrice Audrey Tautou, a provoqué un regain de francophilie au pays de Shakespeare.

Ainsi, 22% des Britanniques auraient préféré naître sur l'autre rive de La Manche. A défaut, ils sont 32% à opter pour la France s'ils devaient "délocaliser" leur famille et leurs amis, devant l'Espagne et l'Italie (19% chacun), selon un sondage effectué auprès de 1.010 personnes par l'institut ICM à l'occasion de la Semaine du vin français à Londres (9 au 15 octobre). Ils sont seulement 23% à choisir le Royaume-Uni comme lieu de vie idéal.

A peine plus de 50% des personnes de moins de 50 ans interrogées conserveraient leur nationalité britannique.

Selon ce sondage, la France a les faveurs des Britanniques devant tout autre pays, y compris la Grande-Bretagne, pour travailler et prendre sa retraite (37%). Ils ne sont que 30% à vouloir passer leur retraite au Royaume-Uni.

Les Britanniques détiennent actuellement pour 4,6 milliards de livres sterling (6,83 milliards d'euros) de biens immobiliers en France et, depuis 2000, y ont acheté quelque 51.000 maisons. Le nombre de Britanniques habitant en permanence en France a grimpé de 50% au cours des cinq dernières années pour atteindre 100.000 personnes, selon le dernier recensement effectué en France en 2004. Environ 500.000 Britanniques passent plus de six semaines par an sur le territoire français.

Selon les experts, cette francophilie s'explique par un climat plus clément, des prix de l'immobilier plus bas, un niveau de vie plus élevé, le tout agrémenté de produits alimentaires de qualité et de bons vins.

Aux oubliettes le bacon and eggs, traditionnel petit-déjeuner anglais à base de lard et d'oeufs fris: deux tiers des personnes interrogées estiment qu'un bon petit-déjeuner consiste en un café et un croissant. Pour les repas, le meilleur accompagnement est un verre de vin selon 40% des Britanniques, contre à peine 5% qui préfèrent la traditionnelle bière anglaise.

[Loiseau]

Brilliant!  I knew somebody would have a link to this astonishing claim...

And it's hardly surprising that 1,000 visitors to a French Wine Week would prefer drinking wine to beer, is it? [;-)]

Angela

EDIT
I notice in the Daily Telegraph article liked to above that the heading has been toned down to: 
"one in five Britons would rather be French" !

 

[Jeanneclaire]

[quote user="Loiseau"]

A French friend from the Vendee has just sent me an email in which he says:

"La presse nous apprend que 2 Anglais sur 5 auraient souhaité naître en FRANCE ?? !!"

Can this really be so?  I wouldn't have thought actually that 2 in 5 English people had *been* to France even, never mind wish they'd been born there...   And love France as I do, I certainly have never formulated such a desire.

So what proportion of those on this forum would agree with the French press on this one?

Angela

 

[/quote]

[Eskenazi]

I'm only surprised it's so few. If you asked a cross- section of those who actually know France well but have to live in the Chav-dominated, vomit-ridden, thug-infested, alcohol-soaked slum that England has become, I'm sure you'd get a rating of 4 out of 5.

[bedders]

I'm only surprised it's so few. If you asked a cross- section of those who actually know France well but have to live in the Chav-dominated, vomit-ridden, thug-infested, alcohol-soaked slum that England has become, I'm sure you'd get a rating of 4 out of 5.

What a cheek, I didn't think the UK was that good[:D] 

Bedders

[Chancer]

2 out of 5 statistics are made up on the spot!

[Cat]

[quote user="Eskenazi"]I'm only surprised it's so few. If you asked a cross- section of those who actually know France well but have to live in the Chav-dominated, vomit-ridden, thug-infested, alcohol-soaked slum that England has become, I'm sure you'd get a rating of 4 out of 5.
[/quote]

It's been said before, but here goes anyway...

Sure, anyone who has moved to a sleepy village in France, and maybe doesn't watch or read the french news, might not be aware that France suffers from exactly the same problems in her inner-city areas as the UK. Everything might look pretty rosy here for anyone not living or working in the cities.

Drugs, alcohol, urban violence, social unrest, rioting, unemployment, crime, they're all here too.  I'm lucky enough to live in a rural area where we don't have too many of these problems, and I like it here in France (but then I liked it in the UK as well) but I put away my rose-tinted specs a long time ago.

 

[Will]

[quote user="Eskenazi"]I'm only surprised it's so few. If you asked a cross- section of those who actually know France well but have to live in the Chav-dominated, vomit-ridden, thug-infested, alcohol-soaked slum that England has become, I'm sure you'd get a rating of 4 out of 5.
[/quote]

Then I'm more than happy to be one in five.

Not that I don't like being in France, but when you actually look a bit deeper what Cat says is quite right. Exactly the same problems exist, though perhaps France is a few years behind, so who's to say it won't catch up? There are certainly drug, drink and crime problems, and not just in the cities either.

[yorky]

I spend time  in France and Spain. Now I left the UK quite some time ago, though not because it was a chav infested...............ect. Now I visit the uk frequently to visit family, attend to business interests and socialise. I have to say that I do not see any of this  social upheaval that 20% of the population seem to want to flee. I really like Britain and I really think that a lot of the people who knock it really would be losers wherever they go. You will find mean streets in every country in the world but you don't have to hang out in them.

Yorky 

[Tresco]

[quote user="yorky"]

You will find mean streets in every country in the world but you don't have to hang out in them.[/quote]

True, and characterising the whole of GB as was done a few posts ago won't neccessarily endear you (not you, yorky) to the French either. Or me, but that's not going to be a problem for people who do it as I will avoid you at all costs. [:)]

[Btuckey]

[quote user="Eskenazi"]I'm only surprised it's so few.  Not that I don't like being in France, but when you actually look a bit deeper what Cat says is quite right. Exactly the same problems exist, though perhaps France is a few years behind, so who's to say it won't catch up? There are certainly drug, drink and crime problems, and not just in the cities either.

[/quote]

But isn't the above precisely the point?  When most of France is like most of England is today, a large number of this Forum (including me) will be in a corner of a foreign field.  If I had kids it would be them that I feel sorry for.

Brian 

[Dick Smith]

I really don't recognise the characterisation of England we see so often here. People must have lived in very deprived and unpleasant places, but I don't, and I don't see it - even the bits of London that I know well aren't that bad (though the estates can be pretty vile). But the country as a whole isn't falling apart, society is not in meltdown. There are problems, sure, but there are also many people of goodwill trying to find answers to them.

[Tresco]

 I met with much goodwill in England recently, at all levels, and in varied areas.

It wasn't a surprise to me, because I have always found it to be so.

These 'I need to escape this hell on earth' posts I read here from time to time drive me crazy.

[Mistral]

I was sitting listening to a "what is happening to this country" type converstion last week. The main gist was that there are so many unsocial people you can't even feel safe in your own home, even taking the dog out for a walk is fraught with dangers. Quote" there are places where the police don't dare go. The law is decided by the people who live there. This is not a country I want to live in." This was a group of  french people talking about France.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Cat 46"]

[quote user="Eskenazi"]I'm only surprised it's

so few. If you asked a cross- section of those who actually know France

well but have to live in the Chav-dominated, vomit-ridden,

thug-infested, alcohol-soaked slum that England has become, I'm sure

you'd get a rating of 4 out of 5.

[/quote]

It's been said before, but here goes anyway...

Sure, anyone who has moved to a sleepy village in France, and maybe

doesn't watch or read the french news, might not be aware that France

suffers from exactly the same problems in her inner-city areas as the

UK. Everything might look pretty rosy here for anyone not living or

working in the cities.

Drugs, alcohol, urban violence, social unrest, rioting,

unemployment, crime, they're all here too.  I'm lucky enough to

live in a rural area where we don't have too many of these problems,

and I like it here in France (but then I liked it in the UK as

well) but I put away my rose-tinted specs a long time ago.

 [/quote]

I cannot disagree with you Cat, mostly because you are right.

However, one thing does strike me that Eskanazi brings up, and I hope

that this doesn't put anyone off their breakfast, and that is the vomit

issue. During my not infrequent visits to some of France's more seamy

quarters on frisky nights out in my youth, I have been struck by the

more-or-less complete absence of pavement-pizzas and

projectile-vomitting citizenry. Contrast this with some many UK town

centres of a Saturday morn, smoothered in a thick layer of partially

digested kababs, and one might be tempted to conclude that the Bristish

suffer collectively from some severe gastric disorder.[+o(] It certainly does not impress overseas visitors.

Of course, what a lot of people find distressing in the UK is that

the culture Eskanazi describes is not restricted to "inner city" (do we

include the banlieues in this definition? I suppose so) but is

seemingly everywhere in every small town and many villages. Whereas in

France it is possible to largely escape these problems, as you say.

Personally I have no wish to have been born other than I was. I've

been surprised how quickly England (I am English, albeit of a slightly

dusky hue) appears to me quite foreign, but since that is the culture

that shaped me, and I am content with what I have become, I could

hardly be justified in desiring otherwise.

Wouldn't want to live there though.

[Cerise]

No, I think the French swopped sick for dog poo!!   Buerk!  I am a dog owner and lover, but having had the misfortune to be stuck in Agde after a car breakdown one hot day last summer I felt positively ill walking round the streets as the smell was unbelieveable.  I live/lived in nice places in both France and England and am aware that there are good and bad things in both countries.

This summer I have been tired of of our friends and guests telling me how appalling UK is.  Whenever other ex-pats try that I ask them what is so great about French politics - find that most of them don't even know the name of the Prime Minister so are hardly in a position to comment.  Hate to say this but moaning and racism seem endemic among my fellow brits.  I try telling them that they are immigrants theirselves so less said on that subject the better but off they go again, whinge, whinge, whinge.  If I try a small whinge myself about French bureaucracy, or political woes I am reminded sharply that France is paradise.  They know 'cos it said so on the tele[:)]

[Eskenazi]

If all those of you who were so distressed about my post, think so highly of the UK, may I ask if you all live there? I cannot imagine where you get your ideas  - Belgravia? Little Poppleton? I do not live in a deprived area of London, in fact I live in a supposedly affluent one - but the decline is there for all to see. Once my suburb was greenery / family homes / small shops (as in France) now it is concrete / so-called 'mixed' housing, i.e. family homes mixed up with one-bed council flats for single parents aka 'social housing / superstores.

My nearest 'shopping town' here is Sutton  - No 1 Chav town, of which our cleaner says she never goes there because she's too scared... no one over 21 ventures there after dark...when you go down the 'High Street' you are assailed by Chavs - quotes therefrom  'O, yew fakkin arseole, jew leukin a meee?'  / 'Ooo fakkin cares? Ah dahnt!!!'  - uninvited, straight into my face. My 14 year old son is afraid to walk our dog in our local park after 4.000 - dognapping is rife...etc etc.

And in France? If we had moved our local  town would be Hesdin, where everyone smiles at you, where last week when I passed by a group of teenage boys, they parted to let me pass, and two actually said 'Bonjour, Madame.'  Yes, there's dog poo, but that does not begin to compare with the evidence of drug use, the sheer, out and out violence after 11pm and the absolute depravity of the youth of Sutton once they have, in the local parlance, 'necked down a few.'  I rest my case. Tell you want  - if you all like it so much, I'll swap  - you come & live here & I'll gladly exchange it for France.

[Cat]

But you live in London, a city.  If you moved to Hesdin things might indeed be different, but you are comparing apples with pears.  Do you think people would smile and say hello in Paris?

 

[Dick Smith]

Funny thing, Eskenazi, is that Sutton is my nearest town; as well established on here I live in Carshalton-sur-Mer. Yes, I don't fancy Sutton much after dark, or Croydon, but that said there isn't much else to fear. And in neither place are you taking your life in your hands, however much the working-class kids offend our sensibilities!

Last week my extended family went to a pub together, walked out to a local restaurant and the kids went to watch football on a big-screen at the Greyhound. I met some friends for a lunchtime drink in a pub in - yes - Sutton. We are all still alive! There are 'rough' pubs (we don't go into them) but there aren't any 'no-go' areas.

This is Carshalton:

[IMG]http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f338/dick_at_aulton/Carshalton.jpg[/IMG]

[Patmobile]

Hey, Dick, fancy that!  My son grew up 150 metres the other side of that pond! (He was at Wilson's, by the way.  That's not you, by any chance, is it?)

It's nice to see it again. 

The problem with anywhere in the south-east of England is that no matter how nice your neighbourhood, you're rarely more than 400 yards from a slum estate.   There is bound to be friction, some social discomfort, and any number of unwelcome sights within walking distance.

I remember Lady Porter getting fined millions for allegedly encouraging conservative voters into a labour ward by selling them council flats.  I've never heard of any Labour council being prosecuted for marginalising, or even taking control of previously conservative wards by building hundreds of council flats in them.  Why the double standard, do you suppose?

Patrick  

[Dick Smith]

If he was 150m south-east he would have been more or less on the spot I am typing this...  No2 son has just moved to Mill Lane, 100m north, and within 50m of where my grandparents lived and my father was born - the pub we all went to this week was the Lord Palmerston.

I went to Wallington County, but got expelled...

You are right, of course, about being 400 yards from an estate, but round here they aren't very slummy except for one street where the post office no longer delivers - 'rehousing' seems to have taken its toll. Even the once-notorious Roundshaw estate has been cleaned up and is now pretty decent.

Possibly the double standard is because in many of those Labour wards whole neighbourhoods were being rehoused which involved a lot of slum clearance (often by the Luftwaffe) and it seems so much more of a social service.

[Tresco]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]
I went to Wallington County, but got expelled...
[/quote]

Please explain. Sorry, but I simply can't resist, and I bet I'm not the only one. Just a brief diversion...[:)]