We were out and about yesterday, mostly picking up bits and pieces at the brico, and decided to stop for a drink in a nearby town (details kept vague to protect the guilty).
We’d just settled down with our drinks when the woman at the next table took out her megaphone, sorry telephone, and proceeded to call her husband. Immediately, the whole bar got to enjoy her rant that, while she was buying what sounded like a business (I’m not sure what but it sounded like one of those New Place in the Sun type things, you know, we’re going to move to France and teach macrame to the natives), someone should have told her that she would need a carte de séjour!
Then she started banging on about how she wasn’t going back to England just because Boris Johnson was an idiot.
It’s almost like the last 8 years had completely passed her by.
Until I moved to Normandy last year I hadn’t met people like that. Now, they’re everywhere, people totally “under the radar”, with no CdS, health cover, driving licence or insurance! I met a couple last week who had a holiday home and applied for and got a WA 10 yr CdS. They didn’t, and couldn’t see anything wrong, and said they had been given a “special” CdS.
I read of more and more people like that returning to the UK. Realising that as they get older and not speaking French and not being fully integrated starts to get more difficult. They can manage in bands sipping their drinks on a terrasse, but once the band starts to break for whatever reason then some are lost.
Must be an extinct species round here, not one brit have I met yet, heard english spoken anywhere whilst in the big supers nor seen one single GB car either. Bretagne on the other hand before I left, was becoming deserted after brexit whereas previously you could not move for brits and their ignoring of the rules regarding vehicles, working and generally taking over in enclaves in certain communes.
That’s still quite common in this part of 86, cars on UK plates for years with the green insurance sticker in the corner, though that has now gone. I do wonder how they can get away with it for so long. I suspect it’s one of those things where it’s all fine until suddenly it very much isn’t.
there’s a red pickup on UK plates which I’ve seen, quite often, driving through our sleepy village…
Being me… I checked its credentials … yep… it’s SORN (years ago) and driving here illegally…
blast.
If we ever meet, face to face… I’ll smile sweetly (honestly) and explain that even if they’re 2nd home owners… they can register their vehicle here in France…
they might be pleased to hear the news ('cos it didn’t used to be possible…) but they might just look at me… with one of those “looks”… and I’ll leave 'em to it…
should I mention to 'em that I’m friends with the head of the local gendarmes…
@Mark is absolutely right - there are loads of these people in Normandie, although, to be fair, there’s fewer than there were. In some areas all the Brits seem to have returned to the UK but in others, as @JaneJones was suggesting, their social group is still intact enough for them all to survive at the moment.
What we’ve been trying to do with our conversation group is to encourage more Brits to try to practice a bit more French. We have no trouble at all in attracting French people who want to practice English, and there are a lot more of them of course! It’s not an easy thing to do and most Anglophones who arrive at our group are relatively recent arrivals. If you’ve been here 25 years without speaking much, if any, French, it’s very difficult to break out of that pattern…
I find that a bit rich @NotALot when IIRC somebody said on SF to a poster that they were sick of their holier than thou attitude when the Brit poster said they spoke French when they were out and about. Although I have to say I might not remember the full gist of it as it was a long time back.
I have found the best way to learn French is to go to the market rather than a supermarket. It is only by practice and getting up the courage to speak that we improve. Nobody minds if you get it wrong or have a thick Brit accent. The French just seem to love that you are trying your best in my experience.
As for those who have been here 20 years or more and still do not speak, flout the laws… do not get me started. A French friend told me today that his dad was in hospital recently (nothing drastic at all thankfully). His dad speaks some English and was sharing a room with a Brit. The man had been here for 19 years but could not even speak enough French to ask for a glass of water! We are immigrants here. This is France and it is no longer Britain, so we need to show some respect to the locals.
