Excellent Alistair - bang on with all the points too 
We have lived here for 6 years
Whats good....
Health service, two kids born here and one motorbike accident, excellent service
Transport
Education
Childcare, currently paying 20 centimes and hour for creche
neighbours
relaxed way of life
ski slope 45 mins away beach 85 min away
Spain 45 mins away
no traffic jams
sleeping at night without panic attacks about work, mortage etc etc
Grants for work on house, green heating insulation etc etc
Britsish TV with a HumaxHD recorder
Whats bad...
everything shuts from 12 till 14.00, Takes about 6 montsh to get used to this
lack of choice at supermarkets in small towns
no petrol stations open at 22.00 for chocolate
no indian food within 1.5 hrs car
no chinese food within 1 hr by car
Bloody Flies! ( no mossies tho)
Red tape, (it is almost impossible to imagine how bad this is)
Social charges, ( dont get me started!)
French TV
Bank charges, expect to pay 25 euros for the privaledge of having a debit card ( no credit cards from banks), and then only being able to use it for 1500 euros amonth. If you want more cash or purchases, you have to upgrade to 50 euros a year.
No one returns phone calls/emails
Mistakes we made:
changed money at the wrong time as the currency broker scared us, I now use a very good broker with excellent rates, contact me for details.
Used an idiot architect, suggest you use one less than 70 years old who can use a computer.
Didnt realise that you start paying social charegs the day your business starts. The law has now changed and you can be an Auto-entrepeneur on a pay as you go tax and social charges set up.
Advice
Do check with other agents when you find the house you want, as you may get it cheaper with a second agent
Still very pleased we moved here!!
Thanks Jan, Iāll check it out!
āblackberry juiceā ROFL!
Best thing to do when you get here is to integrate yourself into the local community. Youāll find that whatever you want, they know someone who can supply it or do it. The language is hard, but at least try, they really appreciate it and are more likely to respond. We had little contact with the British community when we arrived, because there are very few in the area, and not many people here understand English, so the only way we could communicate was in French and that was a bonus to our language skills. We even asked them to correct our errors,telling them we would not be offended and that it would be a help to us. Nothing makes comeone feel better than to think they are doing you a service. They may seem a bit arrogant and aloof at times but they are a bit shy and wary of us, also they are a very proud race so donāt make the mistake of mocking the things they do that we find odd. Canāt say we have ever met anybody really anti- Brit. Neighbours would come along to the local government offices and help us with the translations so we didnāt go wrong. I think they are a friendly, we are on speaking terms with most of the village and are regular diners at peoples houses, and regular hosts, but we had to make the effort. Thatās after only 3 years. In England we lived 8 years at the same address and were only on greeting terms with our neighbours, and if you said hello to a relative stranger, you were greeted with a combination of shock, suspicion and most cases ignorance. Could be that the population of our village is just over 400. I wonder how different it is in bigger towns.
Oh, and also:
5.You won't need as many copies of your birth cert/passport etc as I thought we did, although 2-5 of each would be good. We registered our marriage and the births of our kids at the French consulate in London before we left, so we were able to get a Livret de Famille (family registration document) as well, which was useful for the school - if you're a bi-national couple, you could do that too. We opened a French bank account before we left via Credit Agricole's specialist service, Britline, because they could do that based on documents proving a UK address, so it made it much easier to set up direct debits etc for rent, utilities, phone bills etc. once we got here.
6. Are you bringing your car? In the south, it seems that second-hand cars are worth a lot more that in the north. I was aghast to find that an identical car in age, type and mileage to our UK one cost almost twice as much here, which is why we are in the process of re-registering it in France. It's only 4 years' old, hasn't done many miles, is big enough to get us back to the UK in comfort, and will take our tent plus luggage, so we're keeping it! We could only find 2 insurance companies who would insure a UK registered car, and that only if you promise you're in the process of getting your carte grise (reg document): AXA and Generali. We've had to pay through the nose to get our certificat de conformite (to prove that the car is manufactured to a sufficient standard to be allowed on French roads - a load of nonsense, since everything is produced to EU norms now), costing us 135 euros; I have to get the headlight mounting changed; and then get the equivalent of the MOT, and it should be done.
7. We live in a cul-de-sac of about 10 houses, and before leaving the UK, I decided to buy some small packets of shortbread (not knowing you can find it freely here!) and some Scottish pens so we could go around the houses and introduce ourselves and not go empty-handed. The reception we got ranged from polite but friendly surprise to full-scale 'come in and have a drink'! Some of our neighbours (particularly the ones with kids) are now our friends, the ones we see less often are unfailingly polite, and I think that, although this is apparently unusual in France, it wasn't a bad idea!
8. Last thing (must go to sleep!) - most people put up a sign on their postboxes saying no to marketing material. Actually, I've found it quite useful, as it has shown me which shops sell which kinds of items and where the shops are located. Usually in the UK, I'd bin the lot, but I admit now that the marketing people have a point sometimes!
That's it - good luck with the move!
Hi Suzi
I moved here (near Toulouse) with my French husband in September last year. Our two children are 8 and 6 and could already speak and understand French, and my daughter (8) had had some more systematic teaching in a French class for bilingual kids in Glasgow before we left. I speak French (mostly fluently, but probably without always the right genders. . .!), and I'm an English (foreign lang) teacher, so I'm hoping that I will also be able to find work to supplement my husband's post as a lecturer.
1. I really like the dry weather. This obviously depends on where you'll be living. . .
2. The school day is really long - 9-5pm for our kids - which means that if they do an activity afterwards, basically the whole evening is taken up. BTW almost all the main activities start off in September round here. The registration sessions are held on two consecutive Saturdays and there was literally a (French-style) queue and alot of jostling around the entrance to the hall half an hour before the doors were opened! You might have to do alot of asking around to find activities for your kids if they want to start something halfway through the year.
3. My 8 year-old always has homework, and at the beginning it was really tough, with sessions which lasted up to 3 hours (on Wed or Sun mornings). But now she's getting good marks in French, and is coping well with Maths (via French and English). My 6 year-old, having already had his first year of school in Scotland and joining the first year of French primary last September, was not learning much that was academically new until recently, but that gave him the time to soak up French, watch what was going on and how to play, and pick up the slang. Now he takes pride in speaking French, and his reading is at comparable and good levels in both languages. We're very proud of them, and grateful that they have met the challenge so well, and tell them so.
4. I'm really glad I speak French! I've had to talk to estate agents, the town hall, doctors, dentists, physios, car mechanics, tax officers, lawyers, sales reps, police officers, teachers, and each with their own brand of technical language and vocab. I spent 4 years in Japan after leaving university, and arrived there with 5 words of the language, so I know what it feels like to step off a plane and become totally dependent on others. There, I was living by myself, so it didn't matter so much, but here with the kids I'm glad I know what's going on directly.
Hope this helps!
But of course - compared to Parisians, La Poste employees are the nicest people outside of Paris
Right - setting up Survive New Zealand nowā¦!
Sue, France is still on the cards, although I would agree that this may have gone a little off track...:/.....glad I'm married to a competent builder (currently working as a corporate building surveyor!) Who is wiling to work to the French system and standards. We have personally seen, whilst house hunting, appalling work carried out by 'diy builders' and 'uk builders' working in France, perhaps not that different from the 'cowboy builders' in the UK. Glad we have finally found an untouched property that we can do properly!.
Thankyou all for your pros and cons, and all your experiences - keep 'em coming - its all very interesting and informative.
No tips sorry - have not really had problems with French builders - it is the English!!! Blog sounds good as arenāt we all losing the plot here? - this was supposed to be pros and cons on moving to France - I suspect maybe Suzi and family might be looking to NZ by now!!!
Hello Suzi
I moved out here with my 12 and 14 year old boys in 2004. My husband and I worked as agent commerciaux in estate agency. We rented then bought a house. The boys went to French school. I would have the following Pros and Cons
1 Your kids need to be young and/or academic to do well in the French school system. I have one who is a worker and one who isnt and neither of them did well. My youngest went in the end to an International School at 16 and did his GCSE and A Levels and is now at Uni in England. My eldest did well at the language and arts subjects but was completely lost in the science and maths. The levels are so much more advanced than in England - especially Maths - all the French kids find it really tough. The choice of whether to remain on the academic or technical route occurs at 14. I thought initially that this was excellent but on reflection, the kids who go on the technical route are often those who are not capable of the academic one - this means there is a very mixed bag of students in the technical colleges - some of whom have no desire to work but are too young to leave school. Youth unemployment is extremely high.
My kids found the school curriculum very limited - many hours of sciences, maths, history, languages. Very little sport, art and no drama at all. No essay writing - I had to teach my 17 year old how to write an essay! Very little emphasis on the individual and creativity.
2. You have to play by the system. The system is complicated and you have to ask the right questions but it is not always easy to know what the right questions are. I can help you in this respect!
3. If you live in a small town or village nothing, and I mean nothing, is a secret. This includes living many miles away in the countryside... If you dont speak the language, you will be cut off. Read the local newspaper - it will give you vocab. and something to talk about.
4. Where are the Pros you are asking - well, we are still here for all the reasons that people come to France. We dip back into the UK from time to time and it makes me feel manic; too much - food, traffic, rain, shopping, talk.
Funny, I live just outside of Paris, and for me, the most delightful people that I encounter on a regular basis are the employees at La Posteā¦
try again: we only just got here. My wife is French & sheās spent the last 15 years living in the states & the UK. She feels the same - that the things havenāt really progressed in the time sheās been away. We had an opportunity last year to make the move & it was either then or wait until the kids have finished school. Saying all that, itās winter & a bit harder, I guess.
I still feel very strongly about the food thoā. They (the French) could do with pulling their heads out of the sand. & perhaps stop calling coriander āArab Parsleyā.
I didnāt state the pros, coz they are many & obvious. The 300 days of sunshine for one!
Now the lingo well for more than 30 years but sometimes I'd like a bit more than b'jour, b'soir, exetera (weird, they never say "etcetera") or the usual B.S. about what they'll eat or where and what they've been eating.
Did all the other things and joined the associations and the choirs and bands and what not..., just doesn't help to integrate because when not born here no integration, not even for the French who were born only a stones throw away...
Agreed, other expats are often great, the best one happens to be my neighbour, but a great time? Not really. Last year I rebuilt a dacha in Ukraine and had more fun in 4 months than the last 10 years in France. Makes for an easy choice, doesn't it?
Funny that people can only reason from their own limited view, experiences and/or profession. Please read what Jon wrote, he NEVER paid a dime in advance, and neither did I. My dad used to, and he was the one usually getting taken to the cleaners. The last job that I had done by a well-known artisan in the valley with more than 30 years experience concerned a ā¬11,000 stucco job (Dear Shirley, please inform me, does that still fall under the 'changing a washer on a tap' category?).
Now tell me, what if your favourite local official grease monkey would ask you to pay for the oil-change/maintenance before even having touched your beloved holy cow? Isn't it more like the other way around? He'll lend you a car for the day or the time of the repair and you'll pay this professional (who did invest more money in his business and equipment and who has higher overhead cost than any other artisan) when the job has been performed.
Besides, no French law insists on an acompte, so let's agree that it all depends on the situation/artisan/project.
Cheers!
Jan
For me I like living here! I was single. I knew maybe 10 words in French! I was an adventure that turned into a life. I married a French girl that helped me learn french and became my wife. There are days I hate it here but they are few and far between. I agree with what someone else said don't ask if they speak English tell them you speak bad french they have always taken the time to listen and speak slowly. 10 years and I still use this!! I speak and understand really well but it sets the tone right from the begining ;) Will I ever go back to California or the states I don't have a reason at this point but only time will tell !!
Cheers Michael
Hey Catharine I like living near Nantes and have more work than I can do now I would like to visit your area though! Heading back to California for vacation this summer to see the family but Iād like to see all of France before I die!! LOL
Well done you! Do you fancy relocating to Dax
Jan, As an Artisan here in France for the last 9 years. I go look at the job and do a devis based on my discustion with the client and what they want. I send the devis to them if they accepte the devis they write "bon pour accord" sign it and send a check for 30% this covers the material I have to order for this job IE: windows, Electrical parts, roofing, or special lumber. If I don't get a check they don't even get on my planning. I know of no Artisan's that don't reqiure an accompte. that are still in business. I'm not a bank I'm not going to loan you 5 or 6 thousand ā¬ just to have someone say No I don't want it now!! ( It has NEVER happened to me) after I start the job I ask for another 30% and the rest at the end of the job. I give a facture for every Accompte the client gives me! I can't afford to cheat my client as ALL my work comes by word of mouth. I'm booked till the end of September as of this writing!!