There you go again David, being nasty rather than putting up any debate.
What you can’t handle is that other people have more experience of France than you. You just can’t seem to cope with that. Does not matter if it is windows or basic social economics. Me or anyone else on whatever forum, your instant reaction is to insult someone.
Explain to me this, why do so many French people want to go and work in the UK ? Why do so many other EU nationalities what to go and work in the UK.
My answer would be, because the UK is and has been for a long time, a very materialistic country with a get rich quick economy with very few rules and regulations to protect consumers or trades. It ranks as one of the easiest countries in the world to do business. Whether that’s an entirely desirable economic and social model is open to question. Other countries could no doubt emulate if they wanted to, but they don’t want to because they have different priorities, with more emphasis on the social implications. But that’s how it is, and that’s why people want to go and work there. Again, no great mystery.
Mark, I think you still have that same blind spot to the fact that we all have our own different experiences of France and they’re all equally valid. You have your own understanding of how things tick, based on your own personal experience and that of your particular circle of acquaintances. Presumably filtered to you through your wife since I seem to remember you saying that your French is not very advanced, so for that and other reasons hereabove discussed you probably don’t tend to get your raw information direct from the French media as most people in France do. I would have thought that that could be a bit of a barrier to being a leading authority on France, but maybe not.
Well Anna, I came here in my mid twenties with debts, worked in a French company, lived all over France, rented many flats, bought 2 houses, bought 6 cars, set up my my own business, have two kids and now mortgage free at the age of 44. Have French family all over France. Watched family go through school, then university, then find a job, then re-train get married have kids. I have watched people go through their later stages of their working life then retire.
Oh dear your attitude remains in a rut. I’m quite happy to accept that other people have more experience than me. What I refuse to accept is that your way is the only way and that your experience is of any assistance to the majority of people who post on here. As a bored house husband who has chosen to live in France, particularly in French towns your experience is probably very valuable to a small number of expats. However, as you are quick to state most English speaking people in France live very different lives to you. You generalise, pick up on stereotypes then preach. To preach you need respect. That you have to earn.
This is my last reply to you on this thread. I know how you operate and yet again you are laying down bait. Enjoy the heat, it’s beautifully cool in my stone house out here in the sticks.
Thanks for your attention to my post message to you. Your replies helped me to understand the context from which you made the remarks you did, and we were perhaps at unintentional cross purposes. These things happen on platforms like this.
I also tend sometimes (not infrequently) to extrapolate my own experience of life on to the world in general, generalising it. It’s also true that length of experience or even breadth of experience doesn’t always connote depth of experience. There’s a truism that twenty years of experience may for some represent one year of experience repeated twenty times over. I’m not saying this fits your own, but there are ways in which it could be said about my own. Although I shall be 80 next birthday, there are several ways in which I still have the mind of a nine-year-old.
Having said all that, and without retracting my comment about your rather testy style, I value your contributions which have something of the Dijon mustard abut it. Not that I’m a connoisseur of the piquant condiment, but I like it. Not with everything, you understand.
As to educational elitism, although I don’t know much about the cadre system, but it’s not going to change my mind about educational elitism in England where it’s an indelible feature of the class system, of which the constitutional supremacy of the monarchy is the keystone, pervading everything, especially the ownership of property, on which the UK economy is grounded, and which is corroding social cohesion to the point of breakdown.
Then you go again David having a little go. You can’t help yourself can you bless.
I have watch you hound people on this (before I joined) and on the other forum like it is your hobby. You add nothing to the debate but only insult the people you ‘try’ to converse with. This and the other forum are seriously lacking members, have you ever considered why that may be ?
Furtherer more, I am not entirely sure you actually live in France to be fair because you have contradicted yourself on so many occasions.
I would argue with you but clearly you really don’t have a clue and to fair you are (and I really don’t like using this word) a troll. 5 years ago I would have taken you on but I am a bit wiser now.
And there we have it. A pretty typical end to a thread dominated by someone unable to simply discuss. So he picks up his skirts, turns on his heel and storms out of the room. Time merchant.
Don’t storm off in a huff, Mark.
You are very irritating sometimes, but your view are interesting. If only you could refrain from ramming them down everyone’s throat, and learn to leave people to decide whether or not and to what extent they agree, the debate could be interesting and there wouldn’t be all the sniping about who’s right and who’s wrong. Facts are right or wrong, but interpretations and opinions cannot be right or wrong because if it’s someone’s opinion then it is, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. By all means say you disagree, but don’t say You are wrong.
Anna… we have tried to gently point out to Mark… how his remarks come across… but he does not want to know… and his love of a hard-debate is not necessarily the best thing for a Forum.
I hope he will find a Debating site where he can do what he seems to do best…
I’m missing something here, some posters have been very rude to Mark but seem to think that is OK but not OK for Mark to give his opinions or answer back. He has certainly been far less rude than some others on here who are often rude when people have a different view to them, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
I haven’t been here long, but I’m an old hand where forums are concerned, and have known many forum contributors way, way, way more cranky than Mark. I’ve been crankier myself, though I’ve never been banned. As Poppy and Anna say, Mark’s prickly style is just a prickly written style, there’s a lot in his writing that strongly suggests a warm and capable man who is justifiably proud of his achievements.
Dare I postulate that Mark’s achievements may have been very hard won, against more odds than some of us have had to face, and who have achieved less?
Mark, your posts have drawn me in, although others have done that at least as much and in other fascinating and supportive ways. I personally detect no malice in you. Pace the opinions and judgments of more senior Survivors, I hope you don’t leave, particularly if I thought I had contributed to your decision to do so.
If Mark had been genuine he could have offered a lot to the Forum. Unfortunately he is not. He came with a reputation for trolling/playing devil’s advocate/posting negatively to cause a response or whatever you want to call it.
Good to see this forum is just like all the others. I don’t understand why people get so exercised, are we not all ‘keyboard warriors’ with opinions based on our experiences? Facts and figures are a different matter but this thread is primarily about opinions and perspectives. IMO Europe is laughing at the UK and rightly so, it’s easy having a referendum, implementing the result is the hard bit and thanks to the Tories thirst for absolute power the country is now more divided than ever with the ‘direction of travel’ even more vague.
