In a previous existence, for a brief period I worked for a major industrial company and my job title was Export Marketing Assistant and I spent my days grappling with paperwork for products we exported outside of the EU. I imagine a lot of it is done online now but I don’t know if it’s got much simpler. There was a lot to learn and I will admit that I found the job difficult and stressful, thence why it was such a brief period of my life! There was a tremendous amount of work involved to ensure that each consignment was accompanied by all the correct paperwork, and if any element of the paperwork was incorrect then yes the shipment did get turned back and it had to sit there until that document had been put right and faxed through again. If all goods that currently get shipped from the UK into the EU with a minimum of paperwork suddenly start having to complete full export documentation, that’s going to create a fair few jobs I think 
Hello Tim
You raise some interesting points. There is, however, one point on which you are not accurate. The majority of UK immigrants/expats in France are not pensioners but either of working age or children. An Institute of Public Policy Research report in 2011 showed that only 22.5% were pensioners. I know this is not recent but there’s nothing to suggest these proportions have changed.
Here’s a link https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/nov/26/where-do-uk-expats-live
There’s an awful lot of words there to read but very few indeed that make me think, well actually he’s right there. I did have to laugh however about the hypocrisy of an Englishman in France complaining that many U.K. nationals were beginning to become strangers in their own land. It would be bad enough if you’d written it while sitting in your drawing room or study in Tunbridge Wells but… It’s interesting that you mention Lithuanians because one of my good friends is a Lithuanian who works in England and through her I’ve met some of her friends. I’m not surprised the bakery owner employed Lithuanian workers, he would know which side of his bread was buttered as he would probably have employed a well motivated workforce. And a workforce that had not turned up it’s collective noses as a job because it wasn’t in their street, their town, their county or even their country. I also find it hard that speaking English was an issue, the young Lithuanians that I know have an exquisite understanding of the English language and use it in a subtle way far beyond the level of the general population and far beyond any of the British people I know here speak French. Along with the language they have also adopted the lifestyle and humour of the local people where they live. Perhaps the problem lay with your young friend; perhaps he couldn’t cope with the competition or perhaps even, he just didn’t like foreigners.
https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1906669?sommaire=1906743
According to insee whose stats are more up to date, 3102k out of 5048k Brits in France were economically active in 2014.
Of course, that’s the ones they know about. The ones under the radar are by definition not declared as actif.
Well @Timbur and @Glenn_Dudley - I waited patiently and two came along together - isn’t that always the way?! 
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You’ve given me quite a lot to think about so, bear with me if a take a little time to get back to you on the points you’ve made - I’ll try not to be 11 days. :-
I’m going to need to do some digging. I’m not clear if either or both of you are French resident UK immigrants, as this would have a major bearing on my responses. I’ll work on fairly neutral responses for the time being in lieu of any other information.
In the meantime though - thanks for the feedback about me being aggressive and unfriendly - I apologise if I’ve upset you @Timbur, it is never my intention to do that and I most certainly do not claim all the intelligence on my side - in fact anything but! I think the fact you pointed out my misspelling of the word adversely supports that - lol!! I will work on your feedback though - I was always told it was a gift
Thanks again for getting back and I’ll catch up with you just as soon as I can…:-
I forgot - just a little starter for 10 I posted on another discussion:
Hi Mandy,
I have looked at the reference you provide and others and you are right. Thank you for the correction. I suppose one can exclude children from the issue I was raising which is, essentially, the degree to which a country will welcome competition from migrants Also the implication: “of working age” = “actively seeking work in France” can be misleading. I took early retirement at 50 and came to France, with a pension, at that age. I did not seek employment in France and I know many others here in position. Policemen, for example, who came here in their 50’s with a pension.
The soft answer turneth away wrath. I am , very definitely, a UK national and French resident and proud to be so in a country I love and respect.
Heck - I had to Google that one - see, my intelligence issue again! 
- Anyway, just to clarify - I’m not at all religious.
A soft answer turneth away wrath definition
A gentle reply to someone who is angry will pacify that person. This saying comes from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The tone and the content of your reply is objectionable. Why should an Englishman living in France not be able to comment on the perceptions of his own countrymen? Where is the hypocrisy? Why not take on the arguments rather than resort to ignorant assertion and outright insolence?
Why am I not allowed to describe the feelings of someone I knew well who spoke honestly and without prejudice? You did not know him so the effective assertion that he is either a liar or stupid is as misplaced as is the comment about my belonging in Tunbridge Wells. The fact is that the Lithuanian bakery workers did not speak English and made no attempt to learn it. They had been imported by the type of unscrupulous agent that I described, and they were not young. They were in the UK to earn money and send it home. I am not making a criticism of them merely reporting the effect on my friend. If that had happened in France the reaction would be the same. That fact can live quite comfortably with the notion that there are very many Lithuanians who speak good English. My friend was not prejudiced against them and the employees were not in competition with him - he was their boss, and they liked and respected him, as I did. He did not leave employment, he simply changed to a job where he could speak to his workmates.
The expression is in common usage - no issue of religion arises.
I just find it strange. Is your part of Britain overrun by immigrants?
What is it, exactly, that you find strange? That someone disagrees with you? My part of Britain is, in fact, called France.
Have you listened to Louise Casey or Sajid Javid today? You are not mounting arguments, just levelling vague innuendos about someone to whom you have never spoken which is, frankly, prejudiced. That’s the problem - people like you simply condemn any other view as racist. I spent much of my working life in Manchester, a wonderful multicultural city. I am trying to articulate a view, held by many, which is opposite to the one shouted by you and Simon. I’m tired of being shouted at and, judging from some of the other responses, I’m not alone. The guts of my argument is that nobody in the UK, bar a lunatic fringe, cares a damn about colour ethnicity or religion. They care about shared values.
I’m just trying to understand your point about feeling a stranger in their own country. The implication is that the foreigners are taking over yet you live in a foreign country. Are you planning to take it over or integrate and live alongside the indigenous population?
Your comments about your young friend really don’t do him any favours.
Tim
I suppose what bothers me is that people use “facts”, such as the one you stated about the majority of Brits in France being pensioners, to substantiate/support their views/arguments.
I’m curious, where did you get that particular “fact” from? Did you not question it because it supported your views? I can’t help but wonder if the rest of your post is accurate.
On both sides lies have been told, facts have turned out be not facts and numbers have been manipulated and I’m heartily fed up with it. The Brexiteers in particular have pandered to people’s perceived ideas of what the EU is about, the utter nonsense about passport colour for example or Daniel Hannan MEP saying “absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”. Oh God I could go on and on!!! Did these people believe this rubbish?
Sorry, I’m ranting now. I’m just sick and tired of all the Brexit talk. It’s impossible to avoid it and every time I see or hear something about it, it reminds me that I’m afraid of what it means for my future and my husband’s future.
I’m bowing out of this discussion.
Let me try it this way: suppose a French company decided to save a bit of money and recruit,through an agent, low level staff from the UK where the wage rates were considerably less than the prevailing French rates. The manager is French but cannot do more than issue simple orders to the one member of the group who has any French at all. No-one makes any attempt to communicate with the manager in his own language. I would perfectly understand if the French manager intimated that he would prefer to have it otherwise. That is not to say that they would have to be French merely meet him some part of the way. You steadfastly refuse to see the point I am trying to make and make these patronising remarks eg my “…comments about my young friend really don’t do him any favours”. He and I don’t need your approval. My point is in fact your point - if you refuse to “integrate and live alongside the indigeneous population” but simply take the money and run, you cannot complain if the indigenous population feel uncomfortable. Simon made the point well earlier. The French, quite properly, resent the Brits who keep some old car on UK plates although they have been resident here for years. They are not “integrating” because they are cherry picking which rules they adhere to.
“I asked them how the French would feel if small towns began to have significant numbers of foreign nationals in their midst and local shops began to advertise their wares (which necessarily catered for migrant tastes) in a foreign language.”
We already do deal with that, certainly around here there are significant numbers of immigrants from overseas, on market days in some towns you see them going about in groups it’s quite intimidating, going into shops and not saying hello but talking loudly in their language and in their special shops you can see all their funny foreign food, pasta in tins, pies in tins, powder for making a sweet béchamel, horse food, vinegary jam, all sorts of things you couldn’t make up!!
Kerching Vero - you nailed it again - on the money! That was most definitely a laugh out loud moment - brilliant!!
Thank you Véronique you have made the point that I was trying to make perfectly.
Please can you list the ex EU countries. I thought that Britain was the first to go through the leaving process. I stand to be corrected. Thank you.