Oh bty I have invited 5 french ladies and 5 British ladies to my home for The Royal wedding on Saturday, only the brits are coming lol 
Se french ladies are busy 
So British ladies only for the big day . .
But I still love my french friends 
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So you are a Lucky wife after all ! hihi
As for the ceremony of royal wedding, I think french people are absolutely not interested into that and they prefer to play at la Pétanque getting drunk with pastis and charcuterie. Laid back we said
Not French but t not interested in the Royal wedding.
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WE met in England , lived there for 12 years together before coming to France lol. So the humour had to be there
In fact … hhhmmmm à game of pétanque and a glass of rose wine sounds pretty good to me at the moment . Lol
Nice that you replied you laid back Frenchie
Love your country and countrymen , absolutely great life here for me, very good employers, perfect job, lovely kids and little grand kids.
Not all roses but as near as I gonna get lol lol
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You have got to speak French … this is your number one priority. You are going to have a mountain of paperwork to deal with and it won’t be translated and you will get bogged down, unless you are somewhere where there is a large expat community and it’s not always a guarantee help is to hand. I would say avoid the expat community like the pest! Thus saying, I have spent more of my life in France than England! You will never be accepted by the locals, so go for the ‘foreigners’ who have decided to settle in the area you have chosen, either French or otherwise. You will get a load of help from them. Don’t forget that the great English pub doesn’t exist here where you can get tips on which tradesman to employ, who to buy wood from etc.
It’s not all sunshine and rose wine … winter happens in France too and if you are in the sticks it is very depressing!
Rather than launch into the gîte business perhaps buy a house with a couple of spare bedrooms and do AirBB … gîte market is saturated and people just want a night or two away. It will also give you contact with people, albeit fleetingly. Thus saying, it’s damn hard work and clients are very picky. And you have got to be somewhere that people want to go to.
Check up on doctors, hospitals etc. too … we all need them at some point. Your retreat in the country may be lovely but if it’s an hour away from the local hospital via an airbulance, perhaps not too good!
It’s a beautiful place to live, I adore it, the burocracy drives me bonkers (they are always on holiday!) but please, please do your homework first. Houses are cheaper, but if in three years you want to go home, your money won’t buy anything in England.
Bonne chance!
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Great post Louise except - I disagree on the speaking French thing - it’s not the be all and end all. I’d say that the most important thing is not to try and buck the system/s - it is, and they are what they are! Don’t compare and don’t waste your breath. F I F O!
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Very astute and accurate account of expatriate experience of France. I disagree about bureaucracy, I admire the French concern for organisational integrity, it’s integral to égalité and fraternité. The scepticism about fellow expatriates is well founded. The advice about speaking French is sound, the French do value highly our efforts at speaking their language, it shows respect for them as a people.
We are indeed fortunate to have such freely given and open-hearted acceptance in a foreign land.
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Nothing better than starting your day with a good laugh - this gave me one ! 
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As Bill Morgan says, if you’re 'appy, I’m 'appy Simon… 
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Try, yes, even if you aren’t very good, like wott I am, but I’m just lazy, having a French Wife
The bureaucracy works … it just takes so long! And there’s always a piece of paper you have missed!
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It really depends where you live Simon. If it’s an area used to dealing with expats, that’s fine, as actually the French speak more English than we do French! When Mr O’Leary decided to fly the hoards in to where I live, the locals were gobsmacked … in my commune, where I was something of a freak, I became unofficial translator andy explainer of things to the Brits arriving!
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Yes, I recall some of those ‘open-hearted’ people who refused me jobs because I wasn’t of French birth instead taking on French people who had less qualifications and less experience than I.
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Please don’t ‘jump down my throat’ Peter, but maybe some people passed you over because they thought it better to converse with a French born worker who they could better relate to.
After all there are a lot of UK and English speaking immigrants here who prefer to use British workers than French.
I have an English friend (fully registered and legal) who does wonderful work and speaks excellent French. Most of his work comes from Belgium, Dutch and some British here. The ‘locals’ prefer to wait months for a French worker, their choice, they are the ones paying after all !
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Hummmmm - I’ve got to disagree Ann. I honestly think it’s deeper than that and fully empathise with what Peter Bird has said.
Generally - I have found ‘the French’ to be pretty well distrustful, suspicious (maybe scared?), and fairly xenophobic (if they have a choice) when it comes to ‘foreigners’ . I’ve also witnessed outright, overt racism towards my own family (my SIL is French Algerian - a whole other can of unpalatable worms…!!!). So - in my view, no excuses - it’s down to poor education and inbred prejudice. Possibly no different to many other nationalities (including Brits) - but nonetheless indefensible and unacceptable.
Behaviour is purely a matter of choice.
Nothing to do with the language Ann, my french has been pretty fluent since the '70s. I have had french citizenship for 25 years and that made job-seeking ten times easier. I was then treated as an equal.
I can only go by my experiences here Simon.
90% of my friends are French, they are not all ‘locally born’ and sometimes they have difficulties being accepted by their own compatriots here in rural France.
I was asked to be ‘commisar de comptes’ for a local French organisation, so having held that ‘post’ I didn’t feel that they were at all suspicious of me.
Maybe because where I live there aren’t too many British so we are not percieved as a threat, I don’t know.
One thing I do know is that blind predujice, racism or any other forms of intimidation are inadmissible to me and I will stand up against this. I am sorry that your own family have had to be subjected to this, not pleasant at all and a horrible experience for you all 
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Treated as an equal, a French citizenship, fluent speaker but refused jobs because of your birth…That is real predujice and not acceptable, do you think maybe along the line there was envy of you too Peter ?
Can’t imagine so Ann.
It was a case of French first and the others after. A lot of it is of course a case of ‘who you know’ which is the same anywhere. As I got to ‘know’ people I increased my chances of getting a job by a lot !
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My 17 year old Atlantic ballon eau chaude (?) started leaking a couple of months ago…I tried a repair with water weld but it didn’t work and was getting progressively worse…Feeling that my French isn’t yet up to ringing a plombier I asked one of my neighbours if they knew someone…That was first thing this morning…by 3.30 today my brand new Atlantic was installed…! Everything about me including not trusting my own French was fretting and worrying about how to find an English speaking plumber…I love my neighbours…they are all elderly and don’t speak a word of English and I know that I would never have achieved a same day service without them…x 
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