Live in France? Join us for a gentil thread

[TheAccidentalExhibitionist]

So how about a lovely supportive, information sharing thread for us mumsnetters living in France?
I've been here for two years, this is my second time living here so 4 years in total.
I have my moans about France, the paperwork, the driving but other than that I love it

I guess I read a caveat into most people's comments and just assumed that they weren't being offensive. People may be clumsy in their wording but I still don't think they're being offensive. Each to their own.

I have found the majority of French people I've met to be uninterested in new ideas and entrepreneurship. I've met many French people from various walks of life and I'm confident to chalk that up to a cultural difference between the French and the British.

Based on your previous posts, though, I'm confident I can make a pretty good guess at what your job is and the kind of people you're coming into contact with. I very much doubt you've been having those conversations with the full spectrum of French society. "The French" is just far too broad a brush to use I'm afraid.

Each to their own GreatAunt - i note that you are not above making judgements about me, my job and my level of experience!

I doubt very much that you can guess what I do for a living! As for cultural characteristics and mindset - perhaps you think that there is no such thing? I beg to differ.

I don't mean to be judgy about your job, far from it! whatever it is then you're very unlikely to be coming into contact with the full spectrum of French people though. I do believe in cultural mindsets but I don't believe they overlap with nationality. My French neighbours who were born to Moroccan or Sri Lankan or Polish immigrants certainly don't share the same cultural mindset as someone born to a traditional Catholic family in the Vendée.

I come into contact with French people from all over France and of various ethnic backgrounds and different classes (although class is a bit of an old-fashioned concept).

Many of them have commented that they feel stifled by both media and government neither of which encourage them to think outside the box.

My husband and I also have our own business and in comparison to running a business in the UK, the paperwork and red tape is a nightmare. People have commented (including other small business owners) that they don't feel encouraged and supported to strike out on their own.

I agree that those born to immigrant parents will have different influences though and as a result have a different mindset to an extent. Surely this just goes towards the same argument though - their parents' nationality has played a part in their attitudes.

They are in a minority though and certainly I would never claim that I could categorise all French people anyway.

Fair enough :-)

Sorry I'm being so argumentative - I can't resist. It comes with being a lawyer (did you guess correctly? )

Whether or not cultural mindsets overlap with nationality is in part a function of policy. In France, the purpose of school is principally to create a shared mindset and to make French citizens of children. This obviously reduces the variety of ideas being exchanged in the population.

In France, the purpose of school is principally to create a shared mindset and to make French citizens of children

And the media constantly tells us it doesn't work

An interesting discussion. I was under the impression that the French public system very much encourages individualism in terms of achievement & the heavy focus of academic scores/achievement, but totally agree that all of the entrepreneurs/businesspeople I've talked to have lamented the current government policies for hampering their progress. It does sometimes seem that they want to have their cake & eat it; when talking about immigrants being successful/taking jobs, I sometimes want to say 'Yes, and have you noticed they're the only ones open on a Sunday & not closing for lunch..?' I think the core esprit is still on the side of socialism, but I fear a wake-up call is coming for France!

all of the entrepreneurs/businesspeople I've talked to have lamented the current government policies for hampering their progress

Well to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, they would say that wouldn't they...

Schnapps - the individualism people reference in the French education system is cut-throat competition between pupils (this is the way the system is designed), not free-thinking (definitely not a feature).

GreatAunt the educational schemes you mention are adult education mainly focused at supplementing skills or retraining not continuing professional development. The kind of CPD you find among health care professionals in the UK for example is unheard of in France.

I fail to see why you would be insulted or offended by my re arks. I think a french person would be far more likely to be insulted by being called uncultured than being told he lacks entrepreneurial spirit, more interested in eloquent use of language in debates than in cutting edge technology, more concerned with solidarity than individual liberties.

I don't recognize a lot of the French people I know from your description either boob. I work for a company of engineers and my colleagues are always going to training courses to improve their skills. And they do kep on top of cutting edge technology - we'd all be out of our jobs if they didn't. I also know a fair number of entrepreneurs and people who've started their own successful businesses.
So, yeah, we obviously have very different experiences of "the French".

My DH works for a company of engineers too (probably the same company), they go on development courses and I too know entrepeneurs. I still recognise the descriptions given by Booboobstoo and Bonsoir.

Most of my entrepreneur friends are not french and are finding self employment very difficult, employing people is even harder both due to taxes.
Bigger business owner friends have moved their businesses out of France. The taxes are high and the employment laws are not in the favour of employers, plus many french people are resistant to change and new working practices.

It won't be the same company as none of my colleagues have an anglophone wife. Actually, I'm quite glad that the owners of my company (3 entrepreneurs) have not moved their business out of France, but rather the opposite - we have offices in a few other countries but my company have found that worker quality is not the same , so are hiring more in France now and less in the other countries. I'm also quite glad that employment law offers me protection.

Yeah, that's what I meant Bonsoir, a rather 'every man for himseld' kind of system. However, I disagree with someone upthread who said rather than rely on the goodness of others, people in France expect the state to provide; I've been very impressed by the level of volunteering here - about 300 registered societies for a town of 30k people!
I read an article the other day about the Huge bulge of companies with 49 employees, due to the mountain of extra policies/red tape that starts from 50 - surely the govt can see that's hindering progress for a start!

A lot of associations here are tiny, though. The voluntary sector is, again, strangled by red tape.

The situation must, to an extent, be better in Paris or near big industry hubs like Toulouse, but that doesn't necessarily capture a culture's attitude.

Here are some examples:

• one of our local bakeries started being open on Sunday's using family members (as using salaried employers would have been illegal). It was wildly popular with queues round the block. The other bakers got together and petitioned the mairie to close them as it was creating expectations in customers that they could shop on a Sunday.

• I knew of the harmony test during my 2011 pregnancy because I read about initial studies while reading around pregnancy. In my 2014 pregnancy my gynecologist still didn't know about the harmony test. She doesn't speak English, does not know about pubmed, Google scholar or similar french databases (do they exist?) and gets informed through government circulars.

• our town has a video club.

• our town had two food manufacturing factories. One closed. The other, run by a foreign company, offered the 170 former employees a chance at interviewing for jobs. They were concerned because they could not absorb all o them but not a single one turned up for a job.

Our town is moving with the times, a video club opened last year :-D
To be fair, a few things are open here on a Sunday: (some) boulangeries, the N African-run food mart, the Indian takeaway..and of course, McDo! Queues around the block on a Sunday eve :( No idea why obesity rates might be climbing in France..

Medical progress is a difficult one. I have seen several dentists and orthodontists for the DC and now have a dentist and an orthodontist for DD that we are both wildly happy with - super modern, young, friendly, efficient and using the latest techniques (dentist is only partially reimbursed by SS and mutuelle however as some treatments are unknown to SS). We saw several - all with recommendations - that were stuck in a time warp before getting lucky. But friends and family in the UK and other EU countries have similar stories to tell.

I think that the dentist/orthodontist example encapsulates the frustrations of France: there are great, modern, up to date things and there are loads of people/things in a complete time warp, living as if globalisation/competition were some kind of choice you could opt out of. And you never know who or what you will encounter next!

Yes yes, cetain sectors of medicine are stuck in a time warp here. It has been an enormous challenge for DS with Autism and ADHD to get treatment here.
I had a severe neurological episode while over here and the doctors were all terrible. It has driven me to despair to see such inept and out of date consultants. I have lost faith in them.

These are our realities of living in France, it can be wonderful but it is also hard. It's good to air them occasionally!
I have never felt so many conflicting emotions about a country before

Autism is a notorious ongoing problem in France. All those psychoanalysts desperately clinging to dangerous and wildly outdated beliefs in order to ensure their income

However, I love the dermatologists here! Cheap as chips compared to UK/US and very savvy.