The French stereotype.
With a baguette under arm, a beret on their head and a scarf stylishly wrapped around their neck. They smoke endlessly, are rude, and have bad hygiene. Have you seen this guy? I have not in any of our travels throughout France! Maybe we missed them. Nothing to detour people from visiting or moving here anyway.
Yes, that is Brad Cooper cut and pasted into a cheesy stereotypical photo of a Frenchman. I thought it was funny.
We read dozens of stories of what living in Southern France would be like. Bureaucracy is what we kept hearing, where the government is made up of appointed officials, and procedures are followed by more procedures making completing the simplest of tasks involving the government, a tiresome one.
Things do take longer to get done than we would expect them to in Canada. The system is a slow itemized process, handing paperwork from one person to the next. However, we have found very nice people to help us along the way.
Being only 4 months in to our new life in France, it is still too early for any rash judgment on the nation we plan to become a part of, but so far so good
I still hold on to my Mary Poppins attitude, that people are people and you usually get what you give. The loudest complainers, in my experience, are the ones that are the most negative! We try to stay positive, and see the silver lining on every cloud. For us the sliver lining would be to become a part of the system that takes good care of its people, with a good medical system in place, and free education fort he children. That seems like a pretty thick lining to me. So wading through a little paperwork seems a small price to pay.
Trying to keep this attitude while we deal with arising issues may prove difficult. Here are some ‘huh?’ moments for you.
#1 Shutters
Things go on in France that to an outsider seem quirky, and makes you go huh? For instance, every house must have shutters on the windows and doors. I thought it was to keep every house looking French, and sticking to tradition, a continuity through each village you visit.
It is actually mandatory, and you must close them when you leave the house, or your insurance policy regarding break-ins is null and void!
Not sure if the ruler at the time this law was created had a ‘shutter maker’ brother-in-law, but doesn’t closing your shutters tell the robbers you have gone out for the day? Leaving them open would let them know you are home, and for them not to bother stealing from your house. Just saying.
#2 Electricity
At first I thought there is no rhyme or reason to how they calculate the electricity bill and heard from Capestanese citizens, that you must wash your close and run your dishwasher in the middle of the night. What? I knew it was time to take a closer look at our electrical bill and try to decipher its code.
It works like this. If you heat your hot water tank during the night you get a cheaper rate. Most people program their dishwasher and laundry machine to run while they sleep. (For our family that means Angelina wakes up when it starts and stops, being directly below her room.)
The electrical company has allocated 40 days in the course of the year where moderate increases to your heating bill apply. These are days that a noticeable increase occurs when people use more electricity than usual. They have also decided on 20 days per year they charge a fortune for electricity, nearly double and these are the coldest days of the year. The funny thing is if you try really hard to follow these rules, it is still hit and miss. The days are determined at the end of the year, based on the year as a whole, and decided on by the usage of power.
It seems strange to me, when the temperatures in this region are very mild all year round. Sounds like a cash grab from the Langudoc citizens to me, or a diversion to keep people occupied with trivial things. Alfonz disagrees, and says that the electricity is based on France as a whole. Does that mean we need be watch when the coldest days throughout France are?
A foreign concept to us from Canada, with a country so large, to keep an eye on the other side of a nation, to guess if they will be using more power on a specific day. Huh?
#3 Switching Licence Plates To French
Alfonz’s bike was imported from Canada and our Westfalia Camper Van was purchased while we lived in Hungary. Transferring registration and plates over to French ones have been interesting to say the least.
He started off at the local Capestang Marie our city hall and their helpful staff filled out the paper work for Alfonz, took a payment and sent it off, only to have it returned incomplete a week later.
From there Alfonz went to the Centre Des Umpots in Beziere to get the Certicate d’Aquisition. They told him to contact a Mercedes dealer for our Camper Van and a BMW dealer to confirm each vehicle and ask for a Certificate of Conformite. He called the BMW Motorbike dealer in Narbonne to have them set up an appointment to get the paperwork filled out but was abruptly told that it cannot be done and hung up.
Alfonz then decided to call the Centre Des Umpot back and talk to them about what it was exactly they needed from him, told them the only dealer won’t do it, and asked if there was another way. They then said, just go to a local Motorbike dealer, to confirm the two items needed on the form that were missed.
The first was to verify that the bike speedometer was in kilometers and the second was to make sure the headlight was for a right hand drive road. Alfonz went to the local shop where the owner happily wrote down the information needed and stamped it with his date stamp. Alfonz found this particularly amusing, and said as much to the Import Centre, as Canada of course drives on the same side of the road as the French. They are so used to having Englishmen bringing their vehicles down, it must be a standard question.
Mercedes France in Paris has our paperwork for the Camper and we are waiting for a reply. The Westfalia is a wee bit more straightforward being that Hungary, where we purchased the vehicle from, is a part of the EU.
Once the forms are sent back to our house, Alfonz still needs to head to the ‘Profecture’ in Beziere with the 2 sets of paperwork to acquire his ‘Carte Grise’. We hope, at that point, we can put the new plates on.
It has been over a month so far, and it has been a little taste of the system. Surprisingly, Alfonz keeps his chin up, and takes it in stride. Good for you!
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How do you cope with the French system? Attitude determines altitude. We can only hope things keep falling into place for us. We stay positive. We drink wine. And remember, we picked the South of France to live, they didn’t send us an invite.
That’s Hamori!