What is it like living in France?

What is it like living in France?

• Answer:

  Compared with where you live now, very different in many ways and in other ways identical. If for example, you don't speak French, then the first hurdle to overcome is to settle down and learn at least the basics. I was away from home in a foreign city and I was unwell. The nurse arrived with various medicines in Czech and because I could not understand the instructions on the packets, I nearly took a medicine internally that was prescribed for external use only. Exactly the same situation applies in France. Many foreigners now have bought property in France, and in doing so have to understand for example how property there is bought and sold. Do not ever assume that the legal framework is going to be identical to the one you know. Similar rules apply to law and justice; in France, there is no jury system, only a judge. In education, the learning process has been watered down but not to the same extent as it has been in the UK. Law enforcement in France is decidedly more robust than in other parts of the world. All police in France at certain levels carry fire-arms whereas no police officer carries any gun in the UK except at airports. France is above all a very cultured and multi-cultural country as an outcome of its various colonies across the world. Look for the little touches that may be at first not obvious when studying the many idiosyncratic customs and ways of a different country. If you are needing work doing on a property in France, do not expect the labourers to be present continuously on site; they may in fact be multi-tasking on other sites elsewhere in true Gallic fashion, and that means the work will not get done immediately. I have myself lived in France on several occasions and am very much a Francophile, but don't expect every French woman/man to behave with open enthusiasm. Visiting a country is one thing; living there is quite another matter.