Timothy- have you ever ridden a bicycle out of Downing Street? Surely the majority of people anywhere are usually "common"? There are a few exceptions of course, in terms of places where one expects to see concentrations of the "less common". However even those, such as polo matches, Royal Ascot, Henley, Longchamps, Deauville etc are frequently infiltrated by glaring examples of chavdom. BCBG is rarely encountered here in Brittany, but isolated in a few places like Carantec.
The majority of them seem to be so common!
I'm horrified by Tim Loydall's story. It underlines why we ALWAYS have work done by local, French, registered artisans [not having encountered anyone like Tim in our area]. England [and indeed probably Britain] has its share of wide boys and chancers just like every nation; perhaps we get more than our share of them in France because they got found out at home and had to run away to France!
I did once have an amusing encounter at a cafe with some"English from hell" who were sitting with an English friend of ours. They had two particularly sulky teenage daughters with them. In the course of about 15minutes,they rubbished just about every aspect of French life as well as French people. In the end, I lost my British politeness and exclaimed "Well, why don't you just b.....r off back to England?". They left rather precipitately after that, and my friend grinned and said "I've been wanting to say that to them for ages but didn't have the courage".
However, that is not typical:the British residents I have met here have been cultured, friendly,well-integrated in to local life and always prepared to help,which fo rus is a huge bonus as relatively new immigrants: we speak French better than many of our compatriots but don't know our way around the system yet,so their advice is invaluable - as is SFN!
WE have as many French as British friends. My advice to anyone feeling isolated is:join a club or association. You'll be welcomed warmly and they won't care a jot whether you understand French well or not!
Yes Little Britian, just because I'm english the french say I have a neigbour who is english gives their name and its with met with great surprise I dont know them. I have a laugh and politly tell them that I'm not interested in meeting English people.
ITV's Little England makes me cringe and I only watch it if there is nothing else on.
Made some good english friends but can count them on one hand, one sadly passed away, but thats another story. I do agree with you though bull-shitting time wasters. My brother is a part-time fireman here and he is fully integrated married and kids and he has a great time with his french collegues and friends "sans merde" I join them as well and am treated just the same.
Its not neccessarly the other nationalities, I was speaking from my point of view.
In 2004 I started up my own building business I have qualifications and things that have been acredited to me, I found out what was involved on starting up a business in France through the propper channels. What really got to me was these fowl mouthed english individuals that were hell bent on trying to bring my very good business down.
The reason for this I was pinned into a corner by these individuals at a friends drinks party offering themselves for work and would I like to work with them. I hit the roof to put it mildly..... I said let me get this right, you are offering yourselves to me looking for work under my name but which in effect I would be working for them. Normally I am very good mannered and have a long enough fuse but this time I had to appogise to my friends and walk away. Its these type of people I refer too, people that want to take sort cuts thinking that they can come to france and start plumming building and electrical work, working on the black. They did in the end run me down in 2008 but given enough rope by me and french artisans locally the maire stepped in and they were reported to the police. Unfortunatly or fortunately depending on how you view the situation I'm still here in France with a full-time job on a CDi contract doing a job that I enjoy with great collegues, and where are the others sold up and gone back to the UK.
The moral of my story is I'm friendly but guard myself with the english.
I am happy for those who have had good experiences with meeting large groups of english people but for me I am done with all that. There are many many reasons why we end up in this beautiful country some good and others not so.
I don't believe that I have ever had a problem with any of the nationalities that I've met while in France. I encounter several different nationalities at the international school at which I work (Italian, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French, and those from English speaking countries too). I think our mentality is that we're all just trying to get by and what is the point of pulling someone down? The 'Brits' that I know were hard to GET to know, but they are wonderful people with generous hearts.
I do have to admit that I wish I was more comfortable with the French language. I believe that I could be seen as rude/stuck up when in actuality, I'm just shy and don't want to screw up! I was having a conference with a parent the other day. She told me that she does understand English but does not like to speak it. I told her I was somewhat the same in French. There we sat for a half hour, she speaking in French while I spoke in English. We understood each other very well and got along splendidly. Wish this could happen every day!
Sorry for going off topic...
In your question, you say honestly.
For me, honestly, the experience has in the main been good.
having lived in East London for 53 yrs, I longed to escape the overcrowding.. and found a little place away from it all in 24.. the day we signed for the house, the estate agent[French] told us of the brits who meet at a local bar.. and thought to avoid it. a week after moving in, a Dutch neighbor[English speaking] suggested we visit the bar, as they had heard we had moved in locally and would like to meet us.. okaayy.. we''ll say hello. 20 brits were there to greet us.. and were the greatest bunch of characters you could wish to meet.. During our first months of settling in, they were invaluable with their local and French knowledge of how things work here.. from installing sat tv, to tax issues.. everyone was as helpful as could be..
and 6 years on, we still meet them and 50 others.. yes, 50.. and they're a great crowd.. everyone has a personality..so do I.. and we accept differences, but also share a good life and information... of course there are "clicks".. but that's life!.. our local resto has been taken over by an English chef, and serves great grub, has specialty meal evenings, quiz and bands.. slowly, the French are liking his style and food.. we're not in an English enclave... some of our numbers travel 20 miles for the "crack".. One of the really great things about them.. I have 20 phone numbers and can call anyone for assistance, as they can call me.. also, my ex Parisian neighbours who can't speak English join us for the quiz and fish n chips nite.. we struck lucky!!
Nice comment Cate, I totally agree with you! I've also lived here long enough to have friends that are a mix but I think that we should be careful not to reject too easily people from our own cultural background - sure avoid the ones that we wouldn't want to rub shoulders with but we're all guilty of being selective with certain French people as well!! I discovered that the English/Irish/Scottish friends that I have here offered great support to me when lost my father recently. By just offering their sympathies and some of them going out of their way to phone me - made a great difference - but not one of my French friends did this. In fact, it has never been mentioned although I know that they aware of the situation - so 'integration' is great but sometimes those that can help us best speak the same language!
:-)
Wow - I feel incredibly lucky.... we have lots of English, Dutch, Belgium etc friends here and have had no problems with anyone. The Charente has several groups and networks set up and there is a very good 'atmosphere' in the expat community here.
Of course I have met some of the not so pleasant expats you speak of but I just dont waste my time with them..... surely this is the same whatever country you live in though? You cant like everyone - that is just life!
I 'know' lots of lovely French people but only have a small circle of 'proper' French friends which is growing slowly but nicely. I would like more but my language skills are not great and it can make small talk difficult. I am trying to overcome this and since September have been taking FOUR lessons a week!
LOL : )
The common running theme here seems to be the language barrier. I find this funny, because in London alone, I lost track of the amount of English people who bitched about "people coming over here, not even speaking the language properly, stealing our jobs..... etc"
What sweet, sweet irony.
I can get by okay in French, but I still need to improve. However, improving will involve being around the French and among French speakers. I understand that initially it can be a comfort to find an English speaker, a chance to relax the brain, but after a while, surely it just boils down to laziness?
Maybe I'm being harsh, but... yeah, no, I'm just being harsh.
Yeccch. Such people...
1 Like
Ugh.... what soap opera nonsense.... I have heard a lot of similar stories, and they suck.
And seriously, start charging for interpretation services, you sound way too tolerant in my opinion.
We arrived here 9 years ago but this is our second time here. We found a lot of English tried to take advantage of us when they thought that we had just come off the boat so to speak and were quite upset that we already spoke French. We then met with an inverse snobbery because we could speak French until we were wanted to interpret for others. If we want anything done by English people we are quoted a day rate (the day being from 10.00 to 14.00 with meals provided) yet we are expected to interpret and give up our time for free.
We also find a lot of back stabbing here among the Brits. We had a nice circle of friends until another couple invited themselves into the circle. She was a volunteer for the Elizabeth Finn charity and would recall the personal details of the applicants she had seen despite her husband telling her not to. Gradually she inflicted her venom on others and apart from four of us the group has split up. She told lies about my wife to another woman who rather foolishly repeated the lies and who is now the subject of lies herself. One of the group runs a restaurant and instead of commenting to him that she thought her fish was a little dry, she posted it on another forum.
Frequently we interptret for other Brits but could count on one hand the times that people have said thank you. Although my school was "Approved" I always tell the 4, 4, 4's, that I would not have been accepted into Eton without some knowledge of French.
I agree actually, and really miss my friends in the UK, Germany and so on as also my OH misses Italian language, those chats and all the rest of her cultural origins immensely. We are though, as said, somewhat lead by the nose as children of young parents. The social scene more or less chose us.
As for the overbearing ones, Cate where have you been hiding? There is a couple my OH is trying to sell the house for who have been here permanently since the late 1960s and proudly told her have never needed French! I've no idea what they did for a living unless they were 'independent' of that need, but how? Dordogneshire is not all enclaves and tea parties, most people have blended in well but the rush to sell houses certainly seems to have dragged a few out of the woodwork who take the pip.
Ja, warum nicht... Grüßi... ;-)
Love it! Totally agree with you Catharine.