I think you have hit the nail on the head. I was not a Tory voter in the UK (even before Mrs Thatcher and certainly not after) and my decision to move to France was partly based on my my perception of the way the community here lives symbiotically. Your post summed up my beliefs perfectly.
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Thank you for sharing so openly. i would love to hear more as I find all sorts of questions arising from what you said. i do understand the dyslexia thing very well. Personally spelling and language mistakes don’t bother me at all so I hope you will share more. I’m thinking about my own mistake filled French. It’s only about the essence of the communication, right?
I was always pretty left until I moved to Europe ( Netherlands) and discovered a whole new definition of liberalism. Fascinating to see how many different ways there are to see reality.
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How do you see that the community lives symbiotically? One example in our short time here so far. We assumed the guy on the tractor mowing beside the roadway was paid by the commune, but it seems everyone just pitches in to do whatever they can and have since done our own share of community mowing. Feels good to be part of sharing the load.
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I grew up in a community where favours were done and repaid, I later moved to a part of southern England where every good deed had a price. I didn’t like it. Here in France I have found that my friends and neighbours are prepared to bend over backwards to help me and each other. I feel as though I’ve come home.
The land across the lane from my house is owned by a French family who own an inherited house now used as a holiday home. The farmer next door keeps the grass cut, not because he is paid to do so but because he likes to keep our hamlet looking neat and tidy. Everybody living nearby knows who I am, my daughter who has bought a flat in London doesn’t even know her neighbours’ names.
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Certainly will and thank you for your kind remarks.
Getting back to your neighbour have you asked yourself why he took the wood, what springs to my mind is did he want to leave it tidy after what he admits was a mistake or is he short of firewood and is too proud to ask for it.
… in which event, he might ask you to pay for cutting it up and re-stacking it on your land 
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Yep, Beverly needs to find out what type of guy he is and is he taking advantage of them, hoping that they would not bother to challenge him.
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Good morning everyone,
He’s a young guy who’s family owns alot of land around us. He seems to be always very busy, much of it helping others out. He visits his grandma every day and has generally been helpful to us. A man of few words with a huge pile of wood on his land next door. I think he just doesn’t value trees except for the wood. Why he took the wood? No idea. Hope he returns it soon.
Quite a few people nearby have dropped in spontaneously and we’ve been invited to visit and for meals. Warm and open, which is totally different from what I’ve always heard about the French. So it’s just the tree issue and the hunters. But people are different everywhere aren’t they?
It’a already nicely cut up and added to his enormous stack. Just needs to be moved to our side.
Looks like he is obsessed with piles of wood.
In some places, a stack of wood is a measure of ones wealth…
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A number of our acquaintances and friends in France report experiencing a certain ‘pressure on their boundaries’ when they first moved to France. While it’s clearly not a universal habit it seems some French feel there might be room for ‘redefining’ some boundaries when new people move into a property. Maybe more so when those people are foreign.
This isn’t necessarily malicious, if the property has been vacant there may have been some boundary creep over time. Maybe there was some genuine misunderstanding (our own property grew by a significant chunk when our agent actually measured it out. Fortunately our neighbour was quite happy about losing that patch of grass.)
It could be part of the process of establishing yourself in the community. In addition to being friendly, supportive and helpful, you may also need to be seen to stand politely firm on your rights. May be no harm in gently reminding the farmer that he was going to be returning the wood, asking when he’ll be getting round to it and offering to help when he does.
Presume you’ll be planting a new tree. Sooner it’s in the sooner it will be big enough to please the eye.
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Please ensure that anything planted… is the correct distance from the boundary. The Mairie will be able to provide the necessary information…
It is not only foreigners who get it wrong… some folk in my commune are in the throes of a very long-standing dispute about boundaries… beggars belief how they are behaving/misbehaving… and they are from the same family… 
As Tim suggests, there is no harm in a newcomer asking for help in defining boundaries… I have been called upon to translate on several occasions. All completely amicable… 
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Very good comment Tim, my motto is always polite but firm with your neighbours.
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It’s not just france where land can be taken by the farmer using it. I have a friend in Wales who worked abroad and gave a farmer permission to use his fields while he was away. The farmer successfully took control of the land and was backed by the local agricultural bodies. Land in Wales as in France is very important.
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Why don’t you go over with a wheelbarrow and a bottle of good wine. Thank him for cutting your wood and tell him you’ll move it out of his way.
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BBy With regards to allowing a local farmer to use your land, this whole topic would appear to be a a nightmare…well it is for us. Some member may remember that I posted about this a while ago, and we were offered a lot of support on here. Sadly nothing has changed for us, if anything it all seems worse now having read the previous posts. Due to health issues and other problems connected with the property, namely problems with a neighbour, still unresolved, we have tended to try not to think too much about selling, much as we want to. Apologies for rambling on. Our concern was and still is the fact that we had a contract with the local farmer to use our five acres, this was in place when we bought and suited us fine, that is until we found out about SAFER and the implications involved when the new law came in. The farmer owned all the land on three sides of ours, making us quite sure that if we tried to sell there would be no doubt he would want the land. Over a year ago the farmer retired and sold to another who owns the land surrounding this farmer. The first we knew was when our farmer came to the door with the new farmer to tell us he had sold and this man would be taking over our land. We were given a sheet of paper to sign, saying we agree to this. My husband and I said “No” we wanted to take advise first, they were not very happy but agreed. We spoke to our Marie who said, sign nothing or just let him use it short term. Which is what we did, we explained we did not want any money and he could use it for 12 months and then sign again. This land is used for growing crops so we could see he needed some security. Now reading al that’s being said on here it would seem we are no more in control than before. The date on the paper we signed actually ran out at the end of September, he has not been around to renew it, this didn’t worry us as we thought it was up to him. On looking at the paper today it says, “12 months and can be continued” something like that. We don’t know what to do, should we contact him and say we are not renewing it, and we want the land left empty. We are really not up to looking after the land. And would have to go to the expense of buying a ride on mower to do so. We feel all of this is going to cause friction, something we can well do without, and at the end of the day he will probably get the land anyway. To be honest all I really want to do is walk out and close the door behind us and never look back. Thank you for reading, I’m not expecting solutions, it’s just good sometimes to get things written down. Anne
I do have sympathy for your situation.
The farmers know the law very well indeed and once you have signed something, or even if you let them use the land then you are ‘scuppered’.
Should it come to selling your house I don’t think that you will be able to advertise it with the land, and I believe that the farmer has first dibs of this!
If however you have a large fenced garden around the house then you have a chance of selling the land to the farmer ( of course at the cost of agricultral land so you won’t make a lot) and selling the house and garden seperatly. This will leave you out of pocket but may well be worth it for peace of mind!
Thanks for your reply Ann. I’m not sure why you say we could not advertise the house for sale with the land? From what we understand it is only when the house is put for sale that the Notaire has to inform SAFER, they can then decide if they wish to “take” it. I say “Take it” because in my view there is no other way to describe what they’re doing. We have the documents from the time we bought the property, this shows that the vendor had declined to take up the right to buy, of course at that time he would have had to buy the whole package. As I’ve stated in an earlier post, the new law as it stands now is nothing short of legalised theft.
You could well be right.
Non battable land is as cheap as chips generally and not worth the hassle of owning it but not having control over it, as such.