Your decision has affected my life, I doubt any of mine will affect yours.
2 Likes
If my UK pension continues to lose value at the current rate, I might consider returning as a geriatric suicide bomber!
(Security services please note - JOKE! I make jokes.)
5 Likes
a bit like in the UK, English people will tut at each other and comment about how a person has ālived here for X years and canāt even speak Englishā. The English are always stunned if they emigrate, to realise that not everyone speaks English and that they should make an effort to learn the language of their adopted country. You get respect from trying. Locals will fall over themselves to help and correct, as I found when I lived in Germany. There were some laughs at my bloopers, but it was always good hearted.If you make no effort to learn, despise the locals and feel that nobody likes you, you finds itās a self fulfilling prophesy.
1 Like
Thank you Mike for the joke, it is refreshing.
I wouldnāt be joking. If I discovered I had something terminal, I would turn myself in to Granny Fawkes and take as many of the corrupt bastards with me as I could, starting with the ones at the top. Thereās a saying about needing to chop off the head of the snake to kill it.
I have had the same experience re health with the NHS. A lifelong painful condition which was poo pooād by NHS doctors, and diagnosed within a couple of days in Canada. The NHS is being dismantled by the Tories in order to ensure the people will accept an American style insurance based, profit making service.Iām stuck here because I wasnāt brave enough to leave a few years ago.
If you have any choice in the matter, stay in France because things are about to become really really unpleasant in this country unless you are wealthy (or ācomfortableā, as wealthy people like to call it).
Oi! I resemble that remark. 
2 Likes
sounds a bit like the Emmaus communities in the UK. Little villages where people who are mentally disabled can live, with dignity and a measure of independence learn some kind of skill, take pride in being āusefulā and ācontributingā. The Emmaus just outside Cambridge is a huge place where secondhand things are sold. They are sorted, repaired, cleaned up and the residents get taught how to deal with people, talk to them and generally run a little business.
As for caring for people at home, given the problems and cuts over here, itās almost impossible to get proper care in the home. There is virtually no support system unless you fight, kick up a fuss and make a stink. That goes for physically disabled as well as mentally disabled people as I know all too well.
I must admit, I donāt feel at all uncomfortable if I meet mentally disabled people.They are just people.
1 Like
Hello Simon
Than you for your reply
You are correct of course to say that Brexit may affect your life (and
mine) in many ways, although until negotiations are completed the precise
extent and nature of any impact remain speculative; there could also be
some positive implications (depending on oneās definition of āpositiveā)
However I canāt agree with you that your choice to remain would not affect
my life. In my view there are long term implications of remaining in the EU
that would be detrimental to every UK national wherever they may reside
The long and short of it is that I donāt have the same negative
expectations that you have as regards the future after Brexit. I have a
positive view of the UK and Europe after Brexit that you do not share.
Granted I donāt fully understand and appreciate the factors that lead you
to vote remain, but the reverse is also true.
In my view therefore the time for argument is behind us and we would be
better off making the most of the future whatever it may hold,or to put a
more positive slant on it, whatever we can make of the future.
7 Likes
Hello @Jiles - just to clear up a misquote and a couple of assumptions youāve made.
I didnāt say that brexit may affect my life, I said that your decision has affected my life.
My vote to remain is irrelevant now - therefore nil effect on you. No good talking about the long term implications of something that patently isnāt going to happen.
You donāt know anything about my expectations - positive or negative. Youāre assuming.
I donāt want to argue with you either Jiles butā¦ I think it does help to understand the effects your decisions can have on others and the emotions (e.g. my nutters outburst) they stir up.
2 Likes
I donāt know where you live Knitter, but one of our friends would have been dead if he had not lived near Macon.
I had wonderful treatment for pancreatitis and removal of my gall bladder. The extra form filling is a pain, but at least one is alive to do it.
We have world class hospitals in Lyon.
2 Likes
Agreed Jiles. Brexit was brought about because of democracy, ergo simonflys is entitled to his opinion; as are we all due to the sacrifices many by those that fought for democracy. However, labelling people as ānuttersā is bordering on being abusive, and I would suggest is unacceptable on this forum. Jiles, you are not alone in voting for Brexit, there are many others here that hold similar views, me being one.
6 Likes
Would i return to the UK not a chance in hell Brexit has split familyās and friendships after the vote many in the UK felt they could say anything giving full vent to their bitterness and resentment. Family telling me why should they work and pay taxes so i can live in luxury we baby boomers have had it so good but our greed and selfishness has left them in a mess with houses at an unaffordable level. One person telling me his kids at 17 and 19 could not afford to buy a house as a nice house in the country would be Ā£500K Hello nor could i at 17 or 19 neither can i today at 69.There are many i know who live in France and have voted for Brexit they mainly have one thing in common that is they use a UK address as their main residence so when/if it gets messy they just slip back and tell people they will have to sell their holiday home, cake and eat it comes to mind
3 Likes
It feels like youāre trying to stir things up @Paul_Smith. Itās no good telling me in one breath that Iām entitled to my opinion and then immediately accusing me of being abusive - one rather negates the other donāt you think?
My use of the word ānuttersā (hardly the crime of the century in an adult environment!) was intended to be light hearted and stems from my utter inability to understand how any immigrant from the UK, now enjoying living in France, could possibly not want to be a part of the Europe they live in. I simply donāt get itā¦ - however Iām open to explanation which, by the way, no one has offered so far.
1 Like
Help Paul
Thank you for your message
Itās always a challenge having a discussion with someone whose views are
the opposite of oneās own and I think it is rare that either party ever
changes their mind as a result of the discussion; still, itās important to
have the discussion as long as it remains respectful.
My decision on Brexit had nothing to do with immigration or trade and I
hope I am not isolationist or xenophobic; my decision was all about
democracy and if you havenāt read it I can recommend a book called āAnd the
Poor Suffer What They Mustā by Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance
minister of Greece who was on the receiving end of what passes for
democracy in the EU.
The book is a real revelation and Mr Varoufakis says that to say, as some
do, that there is a democracy deficiency in the EU is like saying that
there is an oxygen deficiency on the moon. In reality there is no oxygen at
all on the moon and, in Mr Varoufakisās view no democracy in the EU.
His preferred option for the UK was to remain in the EU and fight for
change but in my view the odds against the UK bringing about anything more
than cosmetic change would be close to zero, so I concluded that the only
choice was to leave, even though that may well cause some disruption,
especially in the short term, by which I mean the next 5 years or so. I may
well suffer the consequences of that as well as all other British citizens,
but I feel that the risk is worth it.
5 Likes
It was not my intention to stir anything up simonflys. I felt your ānuttersā comment was unnecessary and bordered on being abusive, merely because someone has an opinion that is different to yours, does not make their view any less valid. Being entitled to have an opinion is not the same as being entitled to be rude. Because of the sacrifices made by others who fought for democracy, you live in a country where you can have those views, and I respect that view, even if I donāt agree with you. Perhaps what I and others that voted for our country to leave the EU were looking at what we considered was best for our home country and not only on the aspects that suited our own agendas.
4 Likes
Jiles, Yanis Varoufakis features in several YouTube videos that are worth a watch too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Zpkz7lK-s
1 Like
Yes Simon, I am resident in France and I do not have French nationality,
only British nationality
Yours sincerely
1 Like
Very well said, Jiles,
We also live here and voted āleaveā and, like you, sincerely believe it will be best in the longer run for UKā¦We all had a one person - one vote, and although we have been asked in various ways why we voted thus, over here (sometimes in negative tones, to say the least) never once have we had the cheek to query why anyone who voted to remain had the ācheek, stupidity, arrogance, etcā to exercise their voteā¦the insults are still the gift that keeps on givingā¦move on, folks;)
3 Likes