Jump to content

France overrun by les rosbifs?


Logan
 Share

Recommended Posts

Great point Ian and this subject would be an interesting thread on it's own.

I actually think people power in France is more powerful than government and has more effective control over any excess by those elected to govern. Perhaps that's a form of democracy working? However the 'people power' tends to be either union or vested interest group organised and far from spontaneous public action. Odd thing that you never see public protest when more socialist laws are adopted. So I think the process only works one way. France and it's culture is firmly wedded to the social model and that is likely to remain in the future. How long the country can remain an economic island as the world moves on is an unknown. I personally think social unrest is here to stay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 225
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

 I am leaving France because the country is in terminal decline. I have been warning those who desire a life in France to think again. The French are hurting and the pain will get worse before anything will change. The anti-british sentiments are increasing because of the difficulties the country is facing. It's not a place for a new life.

 

I think France has been in decline ever since we first bought here in 1996, others may say long before.  When we bought our first place, lots of English people were selling up due to exchange rate problems, house price collapse and poor state of the French economy.  We only bought a holiday home but thought then it's no place for a new life though lovely for the summer and holidays.  And nothing's really changed has it?  Though I think the anti-British sentiments are increasing, perhaps not openly but certainly behind closed doors amongst the French.  It's hardly surprising really when you consider how a growing number of areas are becoming overrun we can't deny this with les rosbifs pricing young local people out of the market, bringing in British builders and plumbers and electricians to do the renovations.  At least that's the impression you get looking at the carpark in Bergerac.     

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Logan"]I actually think people power in France is more powerful than government and has more effective control over any excess by those elected to govern. Perhaps that's a form of democracy working? However the 'people power' tends to be either union or vested interest group organised and far from spontaneous public action. [/quote]

Logan, you're talking a complete load of.......... sense.  Anyone who moves to France because they like the French right to strike is dreaming.  It's just a right to let off steam.  If it made any difference to anything at all, they wouldn't need to keep doing it.

They just LIKE doing it, it's built into the system.   What do you do when you're annoyed with something?  If you're a cat you'll hiss and scratch.  If you're a dog you'll bite.  If you're French you'll manifest!  Or go on strike.  In extreme cases you burn cars and destroy buildings and try to kick a few CRS members (and I use that word deliberately!).  Everyone expects it, it's just the natural thing to do. 

Then it's as-you-were, and life goes on until the next time.

It is a kind of democracy, I suppose, but at the same time it's also a very effective means of social control.

It's neat, because everyone thinks they're getting their way, so everyone's happy!  [:D] 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="Logan"]I actually think people power in France is more powerful than government and has more effective control over any excess by those elected to govern. Perhaps that's a form of democracy working? However the 'people power' tends to be either union or vested interest group organised and far from spontaneous public action. [/quote]

Logan, you're talking a complete load of.......... sense.  Anyone who moves to France because they like the French right to strike is dreaming.  It's just a right to let off steam.  If it made any difference to anything at all, they wouldn't need to keep doing it.

They just LIKE doing it, it's built into the system.   What do you do when you're annoyed with something?  If you're a cat you'll hiss and scratch.  If you're a dog you'll bite.  If you're French you'll manifest!  Or go on strike.  In extreme cases you burn cars and destroy buildings and try to kick a few CRS members (and I use that word deliberately!).  Everyone expects it, it's just the natural thing to do. 

Then it's as-you-were, and life goes on until the next time.

It is a kind of democracy, I suppose, but at the same time it's also a very effective means of social control.

It's neat, because everyone thinks they're getting their way, so everyone's happy!  [:D] 

 

 

[/quote]

 

Maybe that's whats wrong in the UK??? Nobody strikes anymore, nobody dare, they have forgotten how??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Bassman"]Maybe that's whats wrong in the UK??? Nobody strikes anymore, nobody dare, they have forgotten how??[/quote]They aren't allowed to flying picket anymore in the UK so that doesn't help, but didn't Maggie bring out other stuff to stop people striking too?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think most people are just the right side of comfortable / apathetic  not to strike and when anybody does strike in the UK there is no solidarity just whingeing about how the strikers are inconveniencing everybody else!

Labour relies on the the Unions for support and money ( though clearly not as much as they used to [G] ) but they have done little if anything to make it easier for strikes to occur.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Bassman"] 

Maybe that's whats wrong in the UK??? Nobody strikes anymore, nobody dare, they have forgotten how??

[/quote]

Lethergy. People can't be bothered to protest any more. Protest is seen

neither as being cool, nor sexy. Nor, come to think of it, is voting.

I've frequently thought that a compulsion to vote, even if only to

register a protest, would be a good thing. Given the number of people

around the World who are even today risking liberty, or even life, by

seeking the right to vote, those who can't be bothered to shift their

backsides from in front of "Eastenders" to toddle down to the polling

booth deserve little respect in my view. I apologise if that sounds

unreasonable, but it gets right up my nose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Bassman"]Maybe that's whats wrong in the UK??? Nobody strikes anymore, nobody dare, they have forgotten how??[/quote]

After watching the French at it for the last 6 years, I have come to the sad conclusion that in France, the right to strike is just bread and circuses.  People let off steam and go straight back to work.  As a piece of worker psychology, it's brilliant!

There's not really a whole lot of difference between the two countries for yer ordinary working guy or gal.  Whatever they say about workers being protected in France, people still get laid off.  If they can't get you out easily, there's always the widely-recognised harcèlement morale method.

It's not really a paradise, working life in France.  People seem to be constantly fearful. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes SB the fear factor runs through France like a fault line. Business waits with intrepidation for the deadly 'control'. Individuals fear the power of the state and its ability to ruin you. Your average Frenchman is terrified of his family becoming sick and getting a huge bill. I could go on. I have felt fear for years living in France. I have experienced the wrath and power of a taxation inquisition. Sat in the middle of a room for hours on an uncomfortable stool whilst a panel of functionaires with mountains of paper rake through everyaspect of your life. Yes fear is everywhere. You can smell it in the air.

Well come the lusty month of May here's two 'rosbifs' who will no longer be 'overrunning' France. I'm going back to dear old Blighty hopfully for good. After so long here I am brow beaten, broken and fed up with the system.

Here are things I will miss:-

Quiet roads. Good manners and a sense of personal space.

Here are the things I will not miss:-

Oh dear there is not enough room.................................................................................![:(]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="Bassman"]Maybe that's whats wrong in the UK??? Nobody strikes anymore, nobody dare, they have forgotten how??[/quote]

After watching the French at it for the last 6 years, I have come to the sad conclusion that in France, the right to strike is just bread and circuses.  People let off steam and go straight back to work.  As a piece of worker psychology, it's brilliant!

 

[/quote]

 

I tend to think the letting off steam point may be a good thing, here is a very recent post from a car forum I help run in the UK

 

[quote]The step daughter, she's 21 and a wee slip of a gal, was beaten to a pulp by a bloke and a woman last night  There was some fracus in the pub where she was having a drink last night, some complete twonk thought he was hard waving a gun around in the car park. So she went outside (stupidly) to see what was going on when some woman jumped her and started to punch her in the head, a bloke came over and she thought he was going to help her but he STAMPED on her face    and the pair of them carried on until they knocked her out !She's now in Burnley General intensive care unit, transferred over from Blackburn, with internal bleeding and may possibily go blind in one eye 

How the hell can a man do such a thing to a woman ? It beggers belief I hope to god the courts throw the bloody book at these two 

 

 [/quote]

 

This sort of thing seems to be getting more common by the day  [:'(]

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope they do, too, Bassman, but when my son was beaten senseless and robbed (police coming to the house in the middle of the night to get me to the hospital because he was looking so bad) the case was given to an officer who promptly went on annual leave for 3 weeks. In the end it became 'a fight' despite security cam picture of 3 men coming up behind him and giving him a beating. Even when he was unconscious and they had robbed him they carried on. They then left him to die in a car park (1am in January) but luckily he was found a bit later and recovered. No real effort to find them was ever made. I have several similar stories. The police (in Surrey) don't seem to take assault very seriously at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Dicksmith"]No real effort to find them was ever made. I

have several similar stories. The police (in Surrey) don't seem to take

assault very seriously at all.

[/quote]

Similar story here. Two years ago, my brother was beaten up by a gang

of six men outside a club on Christmas Eve - in front of his

wife.  They kicked him in the head, stamped on his face - he ended

up in hospital.  No-one came to help him - despite my

sister-in-laws screams for help. I think everyone was just terrified

that they would get the same treatment.  As with your son, the

whole thing was caught on camera but no-one was ever

charged.   I think I have already mentioned the assault on my nephew in another thread.

In the small market town where we live we have had

6 violent deaths in the last twelve months.  One young man who was

left to die in an alleyway after being beaten up outside a pub. 

Another young man was stabbed and left to die.  And

then last month four people (including three children) died after their

house was blown up with a home made bomb.  Someone has been

charged in connection with the last incident but not the former

two. 

This is why we like to escape to rural France...

Hastobe 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That french towns and cities were so safe, but they aren't. And I am all campaigned out now that even if we were going to stay in France I would have to move into a town or city. Don't like hearing that the police in the UK won't do their jobs, makes them sound like the gendarmes who 'serve' us around here.

Logan I am pm'ing you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Teamedup"]

That french towns and cities were so safe, but they aren't. [/quote]

I was in Montpellier tonight, I left to come home on the tram about 10.30.   Its saving grace was that it was really, really busy.  Otherwise it would be horrible.  Crowds of SDFs hanging around with their dogs.  Drunks staggering around and falling on the tram tracks.  Saw some really scary-looking blokes as well.   And on the way in in the tram there was a big crowd of yoofs yelling and smoking and blowing clouds of smoke about the place.

I got home safely, but I didn't feel entirely at ease.  It's a shame.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="SaligoBay"]SDF = sans domicile fixe, i.e. homeless, down and out.[/quote]

Please correct me if I am wrong here but it it seems France has a bigger problem with this sort of thing than the UK.  For example, I visited Nice last year in November and the problem seemed to be very big indeed.  Many of the homeless seemed to be in a dire state of mental health also which was quite worrying for their safety and mine. Can anybody shed light on the extent of this problem in comparison to UK?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The homeless in France are simply known as SDF. Not even proper words to describe their plight. The under 25's are hardest hit as they cannot get any money from the state if they find themselves in this situation, hence the begging. And that is why I get so enraged by anyone coming here and scrounging, when french kids are left in dire straights. As has been given much publicity recently youth  unemployment is at 25%. And if their parents kick them out, well there is nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Many of the homeless seemed to be in a dire state of mental health also which was quite worrying for their safety and mine" (K Kat)

Its a swings and roundabouts thing. People who are mentaly ill are more likely to become homeless, and people who become homeless are more likely to then become mentally ill.

It feel scary, but people who are mentally ill are far more likely to be a danger to themselves than to others.

I've got no idea about whether it's 'worse' here or in UK.

SDF sounds like the equivalent to the term used in England which is (or was)  'vulnerably housed', but there may be big differences in the definitions of those two terms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At least 86000 living on the street in France, i.e. literally on the street, not in hostels or night shelters.

At least 3 million "mal logés", but according to Médécins du Monde the figure of people in real difficulty with logements is probably 5 million.

A number of SDFs do have jobs, but find themselves not earning enough to rent anywhere but too much to get aide sociale to find lodgings.

There should be a docu on Canal+ tomorrow night by a journalist who spent a month as an SDF.   In brief, he says it's a very hard life, and not just because of the cold.  Lack of hygiene.  Loneliness.  Fatigue, because you never sleep properly because you always have to be ready to protect yourself.  Latent violence.  Gangs and groups form and re-form.  Any communality and mutual support is superficial, and au fond it's chacun pour soi.     

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
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...