I’m possibly misunderstanding you… but locally, the guys who do wonderful work on stone house/walls whatever… they are in great demand and their work is much appreciated.
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Not in 86. Our local maçons are held in very high regard by the community as true artisans.
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Of course they are, like all tradesman.
Non academic and bottom of the pecking order.
When I am dead and gone the house’s I have built will stand for years to come for people to live in.
What have you done that will benefit the future.
I am a carpenter and joiner by trade and have worked alongside masons with incredible talents learn over a lifetime.
Working with your hands is skilful and requires brain coordination to produces amazing results.
Dont knock it.
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I have a friend who is a stonemason, phenomenally skilled and super nice and who didn’t mind teaching me a bit, now retired, who told me he simply couldn’t find anyone young who wanted to learn the job, very sad I think. He said it is hard and not appreciated so obviously the yoof don’t like the idea.
Gota work in media.
Yes or be ‘a manager’ straight away.
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Yes every clerk seems to be called a Manager these days. And it’s said as “meeja”.
43 years working in construction from maçon to conducteur de travaux gros oeurve so I’ve come across this attitude very often.
Not officially. According to INSEE’s classification of professions and socioprofessional categories which is still used, skilled tradesmen are near the top and clerks are near the bottom.
- Agriculteurs exploitants
- Artisans, commerçants et chefs d’entreprise
- Cadres et professions intellectuelles supérieures
- Professions Intermédiaires
- Employés
- Ouvriers
Although as you say a lot of people don’t seem to see it like that.
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Bottom of your list,is it longer?, is where most construction workers are
Ouvriers refers to general workers, semi skilled or labourers (English term) across the whole spectrum, not just construction.
Artisan refers to a skilled tradesperson.
Of course you already know that.
That is the basic list, and then within each of those 6 categories there is endless detail on absolutely everything that is included within the category, down to splitting the tiniest hair. You know what INSEE is like when it starts analysing data.
8 categories, retired people (7) and autres personnes sans activité professionnelle (8) are missing. There are about 500 descriptors overall.
It isn’t a ‘top vs bottom’ classification, there isn’t a notion of more or less value.
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But do you not think that they must have had that in their minds when they decided which order to put the list in, knowing that everybody tends to think of lists as being in some kind of order? Or do you think it is sheer coincidence that non skilled workers are below skilled workers, skilled workers are below management etc?
Artisan ,Personne qui exerce un metier manuel pour son propre compte,aidee souvent de sa famille , de campagnons etc.That is the definition from le petit robert 2012,There is a world away from ouvrier (compagnon in the bullshit speak of FFB )working for someone and the boss man.
I do not know what FFB is but I thought a compagnon was specifically somebody who is shadowing an artisan in order to learn from them, an apprenticeship. Not just working for the boss as in, there to follow instructions and nothing else.
Compagnons are very specific and don’t appear in all branches of artisanat or even in every region, it is a particular status, they are like a union in a way or perhaps the original freemasons. And then you have the Compagnons du Devoir who are incredibly well-respected.
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Federation Francaise du Batiment
Compagnons de France is the apprentiship where you go to different regions to learn their methods.
Years ago when I first started working in france my pay slip read ouvrier du batiment macon
A few years later my payslip read campagnon du batiment macon same job different title.
As for the use of artisan used the way it is in english ,imo a snobby term for self employed, I would probably agree with what was written above but not in France.
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Yes the apprentices who are accepted by the Compagnons do their tour de France, and will eventually become maître-artisans, so cool.
Les missions des Compagnons du Devoir sont, dès lors, de former et d’accueillir les jeunes sur le Tour de France. Du xvie au xixe siècles, confrontés aux difficultés du monde ouvrier, ils prirent également l’initiative de créer leurs mutuelles et caisses de retraite, tout en organisant l’embauche sur les chantiers et dans les ateliers[1].
There’s a similar thing in Germany, the Wandergesellen, the tour lasts for 3 years and a day, they wear their traditional clothes on the way and go under their own steam usually without paying for transport, I have given them lifts before.
Gosh this thread has moved quickly! Thanks for all the personal stories. I have to smile at how many can relate to @Stella 's comment of “happy but impoverished”. 
@Ever12every - We do have the DDT, but only because it was done for the previous buyer. In that sense, it seems we have far more information now than we would normally? I have the impression that the usual order of events is: offer letter > Compromis > lots of reports > Acte authentique.
It is not an old stone house, although we do find those quite charming. We’re looking for a newer, move-in-ready holiday home and this seems to fit the bill. It’s only about 20 years old and the extension was added about 11-12 years ago. As best I can tell, that means nothing falls under the décennale rule.
In English the ad says “excellent condition” and in French it says “en parfait état”. Based on that we assume everything should be working. But we’ve not been able to verify it ourselves. And you know what they say about assumptions. 
Going back to the DDT, can someone confirm our interpretation of the wording? For the gas, the boiler is mentioned as raccordé, and “partiellement contrôle car: appareil à l’arrêt”. We originally took this to mean connected to the city gas, but since there’s a propane tank out back we now think it means it’s connected to that. We also take this to mean they couldn’t do a control because the boiler was off.
The footnote says “Notre cabinet s’engage à retourner sur les lieux afin de compléter le constat aux installations non contrôlées, dès lors que les dispositions permettant un contrôle des installations concernées auront été prises par le ropriétaire ou son mandataire.” So that means they need to come back, right?
The gas stove is mentioned as well, but it is listed as non raccordé. If the stove gas stove isn’t connected to the propane tank out back, should we expect to see a little tank under the cabinets? I feel so stupid we didn’t open everything but it seemed awkward to just root through someone else’s house!
Hope everyone had a good weekend and thanks again!