questions for the 'frenchies'

Hang on Janey - I'm in the middle of a long PM to you

Where would you be thinking of moving to? My mum and dad have a house out there and use a Brittany website which looks handy.

Post it please scarey55? (Without any personal stuff of course), there's lots of us who could be persuaded!

I'll do mine in public.

We've been here just over 4 years and we both love it, bestest thing we've ever done other than marry each other anbd retire early. We got out of the UK housing market just at the right time, found a small house with land here - only needed a fair amount of refreshing, wouldn't touch a conversion/barn thing - if you can find one the Brits and Dutch have pushed the prices up in many areas so they're over-priced. But the housing market here is taking a dive so it's a buyers market. Personally, I think we made the right choice, we do what we need to do, we're not pushed against a time scale every day.

We chose Dept 24 (Dordogne) because we like it here, had some contacts here prior to our move but we love the area so decision was easy.

We're fortunate, we live in a small commune, we're well known for all the right reasons, I'm on the Council (very unusual after such a short time here) and we're both on the Committee for fetes in the village. Apart from applying for French passports, we're probably as integrated as you can be, we have more French friends and acquaintances than Brits/Dutch tho we do belong to a Brit run association which has some good social things going on.

We're not ex-pats, we're immigrants, we're here until we join the compost heap, we have no home in the UK and what family we do have we see once or twice a year, fly back once, drive back once tho it's unlikely that will continue after this year. They know where we live, we're close to Bergerac airport (not a reason we chose here, just one of those things) and if they can't be bothered to come visit us, why should we continually go back to visit them?

As for their reaction, Jenny has always been the odd one out in her family - I have none to speak of - so when we said we were moving to France, not a problem - and it's our life, why should that stop us if they objected?

The thing is research is the way to go, join the Forums - Living France is good, less combative than many of the others, Living France magazine is also good, books on moving here tend to go out of date quickly.

From what I hear from you nger people, coming here with a small family isn't easy. There are now serious health cover restrictions on people coming here which will hit younger families hard. Our young friends here, Brits/Dutch and French are struggling. Unemployment here continues to rise and despite having ok/good French, the French will take a French person over an etranger any time. Work can be found but it's not easy and excellent French, learned in advance, is essential. There is seasonal work in many areas but it tends to be low-grade work and only pays the leval minimum.

My advice is don't do it, the French system is now skewed against people coming here, even younger people without excellent language skills and a job - and remember, the average wage here is much lower than in the Uk and in this area is about €14,000 a year.

You cannot come here and 'wing it'. If you come and are seen to be a drain on the State - like wanting to claim Unemployment Benefits and that sort of thing - you can be classed as indesirable and asked to leave. And if you do work, unregistered, working on the black, and you get caught, not only can you be thrown out of France, you'll be banned from coming back for 5 years and fined.

Beaurocracy here is taken very seriously, it's almost an art form. You need to be wholly and totally committed to come here, be willing to wait for work to be done - quite often artisans are booked a year in advance - and willing to wait for what in the Uk may seem mundane things for some time.

I think that I would advise any of my children, who have small family members, not to come here now. The optimum time to come is aged 63, when your health care is taken care of and your pension beckons at 65, in that way you have no problem if things go wrong.

And I certainly would't come if it means selling up in the Uk to fund the move, if it all goes wrong, the cheaper home that you bought here may well not give you enough capital to get back into the property market in the UK.

Sorry if that is very negative, we live a great life here, wonderful lifestyle but we have regular income from our pensions - but even then, like so many other Brits here, we saw our income fall by 1/3 before Xmas because of the £/€ changes, so even with money from the Uk, your standard of living cannot be guaranteed.

We are retired so cant answer the questions on what its like for people with children....you could PM Tootles perhaps?
I know people here who have moved to work and have school aged children - one is a builder and mainly does stuff for other brits and the others run a camp site.They seem to be doing OK.
Tony is right about the jobs issue - the french will employ another french person first - its probably best to be self employed...we came here to this house for holidays for 15 years before we came to live so we knew the area altho we only got to know people properly since we moved.
I've found everyone really brilliant ...yes it can be difficult finding an artisan - plumbers are a difficulty.....but its the same in the UK isnt it?
Tony is also right about the house prices thing as well - we actually bought our french house on a mortgage so didnt actually sell up in the UK...we still have our london house which our daughters live in.

Just as an example - or two - about being self employed .......

Brit plumber, been here about 5 years, has no work - no Brits have the money to spend anymore because of the euro dive.

Builder/roofer, excellent worker and craftsman has had 3 contracts cancelled over winter, been here 20 years, because the gite complex owners took a huge hit last year and the other two clients just don't have the money to finish the work on their properties.

And please don't even think of going into the gite business, the market is more or less saturated, many are going out of business and I know from my work on the local tourist boards (I'm on 3, including a supervising board) everybody took a hit last year, many sites are up for sale and even the French are baling out of that sector in 24.

and here ...know loads of people with gites and bookings are down....however the camp site and the people doing B&B are not as badly hit as they get french/dutch/belgian customers and they are not hit by the euro thing.

Ok- urm- just spotted this...will post again in the next few days.
I think the most important thing at the mo for you is to get as fluent as poss in French as soon as you can......ASAP.
..and yup- I'd have moved out earlier in hind sight- but you really must pick your location carefully- and your work etc.
Chase me up if I've not replied within the week- we've loads of visitors at the mo and I'm chasing everyones tails!!!!

I am fluent! I teach French and lived there for a year...

I don't have any property in France Jane, but I would say look before you leap.
We flirted with the idea a couple of years ago so rented a property for 3 months to see what it was like.
The cost of living was no less than here.
Average income was much lower.
Choice in eveything was much poorer.
Property prices were about the same as here. Plenty of cheap property if you're prepared to live in a hovel but good property is expensive.
Jobs appeared non existent. Most people were hustling for themselves. They were growing vegetables and keeping chickens and goats because they had to.
You wait an age to get anybody to do anything for you - try getting broadband.
The weather in Brittany really wasn't much better than here. In Dordogne it was regularly over 30 degrees.
The inheritance laws are a minefield - but there does seem to be some kind of way round them.
Overall, we had a lovely time for a holiday, but just couldn't see any advantage over what we have here.

Soooo??? I've unrolled the red carpet in readiness for the grand arrival of the Janeyo's, but no sign as yet?
Any plans?

Oh- I'd forgotten about this!!
Sorry- I meant to reply...are you still thinking about it???

Yes I have bought the book someone recommended - 'Living and Working in France - but haven't found enough time to wade through it yet!

Read the book Janeyo, in conjunction with what I said above.
I think you'll find they say the same thing.