Have you been affected by les blocages where you live?

[idun]

Apart from family allowance, only starts after the birth of the second child, we only got some state help for a few months. Earned income just just over the limit. Did not stop us being very hard up though.

Savings NOPE!

Look at all the posts on here about investments and RFR. AND then about getting money off bills.... ie benefits.

Now I realise that no one on here made up the rules, but I am finding it condescending that the argument is being made that the true french pauvres ie on low incomes and no chance of saving because they are living hand to mouth......... are doing other than struggling, because benefits help towards their rents.

[EuroTrash]

If it's me you're getting at Idun, then I'm not saying that poor people don't struggle and live hand to mouth. What I'm saying is that this isn't a new phenomenon and it isn't specific to France. According to the UK press, Universal Benefit has led to people being evicted because if their benefits are delayed they can't pay the rent. No government seems to have solved it yet.

When the protest was about the proposed new fuel tax, I understood it because that's something you can pressure Macron to change. But according to the handwritten slogans on the back of the gilets, it seems to have spread to demanding a quick solution to an eternal problem that no Western goverment has cracked yet..

[YCCMB]

A very apposite French cartoon I spotted on Facebook:

Who wants change? (Everyone with raised hands)

Who wants to change? (No-one with raised hands)

It's the same in the UK or in most other countries for that matter. Everyone has a view or a suggestion about what can be done to improve things. The view mostly involves doing stuff that will adversely affect everyone but the holder of the view.

[alittlebitfrench]

The carton is spot on.

But, the whole debate is about the cost of living. That is why they are protesting.

France has become too expensive and wages have not increased to compensate for that.

I don't think you can compare France to the UK because people are more credit driven in the UK and tend to buy things they can't afford.

In France it really is just a simple maths equation. My salary does not cover the cost of the basic necessities of life. Also, half of peoples cars next year (including mine) will be put off the road with the new changes to the CT. They can't afford a new car. Even if they could, you can't run an electric car in rural France. FFS.

I can understand how people think that the Govt is out of touch because the recent increases in taxes, fuel, heating, radars !!! has just tipped half the population over the edge. THE govt obviously did not realise this. So yes, they are out of touch.

Heating for me this year was a killer. Every year when the gas prices go up in the WINTER !!!!! I turn the boiler down a degree. It now runs at 17 degrees for the house. Next year it will be 16 degrees. It ten years time there will be no heating in our house. The funny thing is, we have some EDF shares that were bought about 20 years ago. They have never paid any dividends. LOL. They have not gained in value either. You could not make it up.

The tax on on our electricity and gas (same supplier) is higher than our electricity consumption itself. It is mad.

Move to France at your peril.

[EuroTrash]

When I was a student I had a poster on my wall, something to the effect of "I can live without the essentials but I can't live without my luxuries". I think a lot of people get confused between "I want" and "I need".

I rarely have my heating above 16° except when I have visitors that I know are used to living in hotter houses. When it's cold I wear thermals and jumpers. It's what I did as a kid, it worked then and it still works now. I honestly think I catch fewer colds than most people, I haven't had one for years (touch wood).

So I'm ready to take the flak but I think a lot of the problem of feeling we can't afford the essentials, is rising expectations in terms of what the essentials are.

But I do share your concerns about how to get my hands on another car. I'll be facing that one as well.

[richard51]

I bet those struggling from day to day want to change. Coates family "needs" are a far distance from others. Do they really need a helicopter to commute to work? Ironic that their money was made from the internet

[alittlebitfrench]

@ ET

You just have to look at the houses for sale on Le Bon Coin to see how people live in France.

Electric convecteurs trying to heat a house with no insulation. That is the reality. And of course all tax breaks for installing new windows and insulation has been stopped by Macron.

Besides, 16 degrees (which is comfortable for me) is not so great for a newborn.

Talking of which, it is ten years since our last child was born. I would honestly say looking at prices (food nappies and all) that everything has gone up 50 % in that time period.

Wages have not.

[EuroTrash]

ALBF wrote: "My salary does not cover the cost of the basic necessities of life."

And yet, on another forum, you have just stated that you are in the super rich bracket in France.

Are you surprised that I'm finding your posts a little disingenuous.

[woolybanana]

Macron did NOT stop grants for insulation. They are still available here for €1 for those who are not well off.

[suein56]

Euro Trash wrote :

ALBF wrote: "My salary does not cover the cost of the basic necessities of life."

And yet, on another forum, you have just stated that you are in the super rich bracket in France.

Are you surprised that I'm finding your posts a little disingenuous.

.....

ET ALBOF is a kept man .. his wife has a super duper job ☺

[EuroTrash]

Ah OK.

But in that case, why is he banging on about life in France being one long struggle to put food into the kids' mouths, giving the impression that he is an average joe on a low income but is not entitled to benefits to help make ends meet. He goes on about what it's like for low income families but he has no first hand experience and he doesn't actually know how the system works. Obviously he's not entitled to benefits if the household income is in the super rich bracket, No wonder I couldn't relate what he was saying to my actual first hand experience of being on a low income.

[alittlebitfrench]

[quote user="suein56"]Euro Trash wrote :

ALBF wrote: "My salary does not cover the cost of the basic necessities of life."

And yet, on another forum, you have just stated that you are in the super rich bracket in France.

Are you surprised that I'm finding your posts a little disingenuous.

.....

ET ALBOF is a kept man .. his wife has a super duper job ☺[/quote]

You have not read correctly what I wrote.

"My salary does not cover the cost of the basic necessities of life".

I was talking in the third person.

Don't have a go ALBF. You have no idea what you are talking about.

I mean that in a nice way (Big smile yellow thing)

[EuroTrash]

Er no, basic grammar rules.

I/me = 1st person

You/your=2nd person

He/she/it/his/her/its=third person.

I like you ALBF but Ihink you are a bit of a fraud. A likeable fraud.(Big smile yellow thing)

[nomoss]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]Er no, basic grammar rules.

I/me = 1st person

You/your=2nd person

He/she/it/his/her/its=third person.

I like you ALBF but Ihink you are a bit of a fraud. A likeable fraud.(Big smile yellow thing)[/quote]

I think he means he was quoting an imaginary third person.

Maybe he still has imaginary friends.

I mean that in a nice way (Big smiley winking yellow thing)

[alittlebitfrench]

@ ET

I am no fraud thank you.

I said earlier in the thread (did I not) that in some respects that the higher income you earn the less disposable income you have.

It is the way (unfairly) the tax system works.

I drive a 27 year old car, have a 20 euro Nokia phone and walk around in a house in 16 degrees wearing Decathlon fleeces. We can't afford to go on holiday...i.e...pay for the accomodation/flights etc.

I know people who are on half our income that have the latest smartphones, nice car, nice clothes, and go on holidays every 5 minutes. OH works 70 hrs per week they work 35 hours per week.

It is the way France works.

[EuroTrash]

It might possible also have something to do with how well people understand France and make it work for them (lightbulb).

My next door neighbours are very comfortably off, I don't know their exact income but they own three houses in France, their main residence in the north, a secondary residence in Normandy (obviously) and a secondary residence in the south. They also have a camping car that probably cost them around 80,000€ new. He is something high up with IBM, director of security I think, and she is a teacher. Whenever taxes are mentioned they flap their hands and smile vaguely and say "in any case we pay a huge amount of taxes, I don't even know how much". But they don't seem to be short of disposable income.

Do you have an accountant?

[alittlebitfrench]

Reference your first point.....it certainly does. Yellow winking thing.

You play by rules or you don't. We play by the rules.

Not saying your neighbours don't !!!

We don't need an accountant.

Guessing your neighbour works in Bois Colombes. Insert smiling thing.

[BritinBretagne]

I have three cousins of my generation who are 100% French. Two of the three live very ordinary lives where they have good jobs, a good income and live comfortably seeming not to want for anything. The third has a very good job with a significantly higher salary. The lifestyle that she, her husband and three boys enjoy is significantly different to her two lower paid siblings because, well because she has a much higher disposable income. Her house is in a different class and comes complete with a beautiful garden and a large swimming pool, they have a new Mercedes 4x4 and a posh Citroen estate car, they holiday as a family twice a year, once to the mountains and once to the sun. This year they went to the Dominican Republic. To suggest that French families who earn more have less disposable income is bizarre even by ABLF’s standards.

[richard51]

At least , when I state my personal position I tell the truth.

Sorry, ALBF, but I can't even go the route of some peoples needs are more than others.

Go and watch a film in your cinema - preferably one that is not Trumpian false news.

Some people here sleep in the cinema entrance here before the police move them on. Grrr.

[EuroTrash]

ALBF's maths doesn't work out, to me.

I totally agree that if you earn more, you don't get anywhere near a proportional increase in disposable income.

But I don't see how you can literally end up with significantly less, unless you are missing a trick somewhere.

Seriously, I think the ALBF household needs to turn the heating down one more degree and spend the money on a decent accountant.

[alittlebitfrench]

For flying out loud.

You peeps need to go live in a suburb of Paris or Lyon for a while.

France is a big place you know.

Brittany, Normandy or the Dordogne is not really representative.

?

[EuroTrash]

ALFB, Normandy isn't the only part of France I have lived in you know. It just happens to be where I am now.

[richard51]

ALBF - surely you have worked out by now that my main residence is a city in the UK - somewhat less privileged than your residences.

You should really be ashamed of your recent posts.

[Judith]

Talking of which, it is ten years since our last child was born. I would

honestly say looking at prices (food nappies and all) that everything

has gone up 50 % in that time period.

As they have everywhere else.  Whilst salaries and pensions have not.

Funny how some people cope without complaining

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]For flying out loud.

You peeps need to go live in a suburb of Paris or Lyon for a while.

France is a big place you know.

Brittany, Normandy or the Dordogne is not really representative.

?[/quote]

My examples live in none of those places. Your drivel does nothing more that to show you for what you are, clueless about life outside the protective bubble provided by the French family you married into. Perhaps it’s you who needs a bit of experience living in real France.