Glen, you've said it!
Carol, Quebec is only a small part of Canada and the Quebecois are even more discriminating than the French. They do not like the rest of Canada or English speaking people, want and demand their own rules and regulations, and about the exam for becoming a Canadian citizen; is it asked too much to know the name of your Prime Minister or what party is ruling ? After all, when you get a Canadian passport you have the right to vote .... at least you should show that you have an interest in becoming a responsible Canadian citizen.
Agreed! Well said Andrew (as usual).
I can't say that in that case what happened is right - you should obviously have got the job. But the girl in question is probably the nièce of a bloke who knows the maire who... In the end if you can't te faire pistonner it can be very hard. That's France, I accept that that's the way it is and I work within their rules and their ways of doing things, which are now mine too, when in Rome and all that. I accept all those things that don't work because I'm happier here than I was in the UK. I feel more at home here and France works for me, I can't beat your 4 languages, I only have three, but we share Italian and if you think France is hard, you must know that Italy is far harder as are so many other countries. The whole discussion seems to have become a whinge about France and I don't really think that is what sfn is all about ;-)
I even met him this morning. Don't know how many. He speaks to me in English, my OH in Italian, can joke in Spanish and German and has a Burundian wife who also has a nice little basket of languages - so I assume both have some African ones too after living some years in Nairobi where KiSwahili helps for a start - jambo mama, asante sana!
Hi Andrew, I have not met a French person yet that speaks 4 languages. (I am sure though that there is one here or there) Jobs that I have applied for in the tourist service industry have been filled by people that one can hardly say that what they are speaking is English
I went to a place once where someone was working at the job that I had applied for; selling tickets for tourist attractions here at the Bay of Arcachon. One of the requirements was that you speak at least 2 foreign languages, I speak 3 fluently, and than my, in their eyes, limited French. I ask a question in German .... she did not understand ..... I ask the same question in English ..... she started panicking somewhat and tried answering me in very bad English. I than went on in Italian .... well, I thought she was going to break into tears.
No, I do not want any job that a French person can fill ..... I have always applied for jobs that I thought are better filled by my qualifications.
Thanks Marianne! Very well said and in my opinion highly accurate! I wonder sometimes if its the age old competition and historical conflicts between the English (as in England/Great Britain) and the French that has lead them to where they are now? None-the-less I can only wonder because it doesn't seem their society wants to or even cares to change.
I envy you in Arcachon - what a beautiful place to live...., as far as my French experience too date..., well I was pretty clear how hard it has been but my OH is also French and we have a little girl (27 months) so elsewhere is not a reality at this point both financially and otherwise...,
You are absolutely right about that Jean.
I fully agree with you Natalie. What a petty that ignorance is the rule here.
good to hear from you Suzanne and I agree with what you say. no where is perfect and the couple of times my French OH and I went to the UK we met some poeple who were open and warm and others who weren't, a bit like anywhere really ;-)
I agree with you Ian. As one Canadian to another, if Canada would have dealt with immigrants the way the French deal with foreign nationals wanting to contribute in their country, we would have had no one wanting to come and live there. The multi nationality that most Canadians treasure and show real interest in is not something that the French population will likely ever accept. The concept of live and let live that we grew up with is a foreign notion to a population that mostly is interested in what school you have gone to, how many bacs you have, etc., etc. Work, life, or travel experience, etc., which in other countries are seen as an addition to what you can offer to a prospective employer, have no meaning here. And as someone in another post said already: The French don't know what they are missing. I doubt though that they care much. A picture of a horse with side blinders comes to mind.
I find it interesting though that whenever one talks to a French person that has visited Canada, they all are pleasantly surprised how welcomed they have been made and how nice it feels when everyone bends over backwards to make them feel well and treat them with respect. Even if they do not speak English.
I worked for a number of years at Pearson International and have dealt with many different nationalities, but it was mostly the French tourists that made comments on how nice they were treated while in our country. No, we don't make a special effort for the French, we just treat everyone that way.
I have been in France for 7 years now. I have international customer service experience, speak 4 languages and can not even get a summer job with any of the many hotels here in Arcachon which during the summer time is mainly a tourist town.
My French experience would have ended a long time ago if it was not for my French OH. Yes, France is beautiful, but.......
Well said Suzanne :)
Oz anthropologist Nicholas Thomas used cobber very frequently, never calling any of us cobber but tlking about cobbers back home. He only called us all mate. Crikey was not a word he used, but yes came out as a peculiar 'yiss' that I do not do justice to writing and there were lots of things like that. His wife, also Oz, sounded more English than most English...
well I wouldn't want to argue with someone with relatives in the country - but having lived there for 40 years, I can assure you no one I know has ever said either Cobber or Crikey. Which is not to say it was never used. Cobber ( a word that originated in the North of England) will forever be associated with ANZACS, Gallipoli and the first world war. But we'd no more use the word than a Brit would say Chap. Crikey may have survived in Australia longer than it did in England (you will find it in Joyce and DH Lawrence so that puts it around 1920-1930) but certainly it is not used now except when someone is 'being Australian'.
Mate is different. As in England, it has survived the test of time - and I think in both countries it carries an attractive ( to me at least) egalitarian connotation. There is nothing quite so warm or accepting as someone saying a welcoming 'G'day Mate' . Long may it survive.
Thanks Suzanne for your common sense answer. I'm an American but mon mari is French, and we are both astonished at the negative comments I read on this forum. I miss my country too, but making comparisons is ridiculous. France is a beautiful country, and it's my husband's home....and mine now, too. Sure, there are problems, but would there be less problems anywhere else?
I must admit I am a bit surprised reading all of your comments. It must be because I'm French. My husband is english, we have been living in France for 5 years and both of us have always worked here. Either as "salariés" or as "auto entrepreneurs" but we have worked. For my husband, learning french was hard. Like a lot of english people, he wasn't very interested in learning another language. But because we have decided to live here, he didn't have a choice. He started as a waiter, it was bloody hard to understand customers, drinks orders, etc... Then he has managed, with a strong english accent, to get a job in a nice hotel where he was the assistant manager. He used to make mistakes in french, everybody can tell he is not french but everybody appreciates the effort and the fact that now, he is almost fluent. Now, he is a manager in Les Landes in a company that is very happy with him. He still has his accent but it is not a problem with his boss, colleagues, or customers. He never felt rejected because he was english or because he wasn't speaking french like a french person.
I have lived in different countries in my life and wherever I was, I learned the language. It just makes sense. I couldn't have found a job or a place to live if I couldn't speak like everyone around me. Maybe in the south west, people are nicer, I don't know. Finding a job is hard for everyone, and if I was a manager, I would like to hire someone who can communicate properly. Not like a native but someone who tried at least.
It makes me laugh when I read that french people are ashamed to speak english because it's in their culture not to learn other languages. I lived in England and was a french teacher for the Royal Navy. I have never seen people that shy about communicating in another language. All my friends can speak a bit of english, my parents speak spanish and italian, I speak 3 languages myself. I don't think the french make it harder than anyone else or are more demanding.
I am shocked to read that some of you think french people are xenophobic. We have a country of welcoming everyone and offering them the same rights/ chances than any french person.
Sharon, I think it's hard for everyone to find a good job and I don't think that having an accent is in the way of a good job. Maybe your husband feels that way because he thinks that it is the problem, but if he can speak well enough to communicate with his staff in an environment, as you said, where everybody has to speak english, I'm sure he will find something. If not, maybe the solutions is to take french lessons so he can reach a higher level in french.
Good luck anyway, I'm sure it will turn around and sorry for the patriotic speech, but I do know that France is one of the best countries in the world to have a good and decent life. Like everywhere else in the world, we do have some morons, just ignore them and follow your path.
X Suzanne
The trick we use if its only the supernarket we need is to go between 12 and 2 admittedly only a few tills are open but very few customers in the shop the one thing that amuses and infuriates me both at the same time are the Brits that come over to France then complain loudly that all the shops close 12 until 2 except most supermarkets and without exception all shops are closed an Sunday and even Monday in places, have they got so much money they need shops open 24/7 like the uk or are they bored so need to walk around the shops, the staff go for lunch religiously at 12 wouldnt you, this is France except it love it or move on, in my last job in the uk i was sometimes having my lunch at 4 pm due to work load or snatching 5 min because a customer was banging on his desk if i was diabetic i would have ended up in hospital, i worked as a field service engineer and nothing worse than a customer screaming down the phone demanding attention now his factory was standing, to travel 150 miles arrive on site and be told come back tomorrow we are going home now no one want to stop over while you repair whatever it is, but the pleasure when i told him couldnt come back tomorrow i was booked into a prison in Lancaster and they could not be cancelled he would have to wait , as for supermarket managers well thats another tale but they did scour the asylems .
Our Géant is like that Chris, I never shop there unless I have to or go late after work when there's nobody there ;-)
CUSTOMER SERVICE OR CARE is non existent in France, Andrew is extremely lucky if he does not need to queue in his Supermarche as in my experience, it is the norm to only have a tiny proportion of tills open and in Carrefore they even have special tills which are manned but you cannot use them unless you have a special card, even when the store is heaving with queues stretching for meters into the store! I have in the past loaded all of my shopping onto the belt and then been told to go elsewhere! I did, to another store leaving all of my shopping piled up where it was including the frozen stuff!
You are right Barbara...well..I certainly dont like queueing for ages....the one time I nearly gave up with the shopping was in St Pardoux....did my supermarket shop...got to the queues....at least 4 in each line up...when the girl in front of me unpacked all her stuff...put it on the conveyor belt, the cashier stood up and said it was her break and to join another queue...at the back of the queue... now you may think I complain too much...but that was in no way acceptable... My expectation of people who provide a service is to provide a good, polite service....and no, I dont always get that in the Uk...but the service industry here does leave a lot more to be desired. Having so said..our local Carrefour has just employed a delightful lady as a cashier...chatty, friendly..one person has changed the whole nature of the shop!