French life

After being here just a month I can’t speak with authority on the French way of life, but here are a few observations …

All the little villages we have been through are generally well cared for, all but the tiniest have public toilets and a Mairie (town hall). Our village of La Chapelle-Gaudin, with just 65 houses or so, has a mayor, a two-story Mairie (where you must get married if you live in the area), one shop (for bread), a salle des fetes (a multi-purpose hall for the community to use), sports grounds, a recycling centre, and a school with 19 children. It also has a church which, like all churches in secular France, is owned by the state. The community pays a person full-time to maintain the village. There are also 18-odd wind turbines (each 130m tall!) nearby and the power company gives tens of thousands of euros to the community each year as compensation.

Today (Saturday) is one of the major travel days here (because families are setting out for their annual holiday). So large trucks are banned from the roads. Hence no mail is transported today.

On the down side are the public services. Though they work well they appear inefficient and a means to keep lots of people employed, though strikes are common. We have just tried out the postal service. I mentioned in a previous post that my camera lens is broken, so we wrapped it up in a box for sending back to NZ for repair.  Helen took us to the main post office in Thouars, the largest nearby town, as she warned us any local post office wouldn’t be able to cope. When a staff member finally arrived at the counter and looked at the parcel you could see that it wasn’t going to go well. The parcel was too well wrapped – it was too small! The various forms required wouldn’t fit onto it. They did sell standard postage-included boxes but they didn’t cover the insurance amount required. Plus he could give us two prices: 30 euros or 110 euros! A trip to the supermarket procured us a suitable box so we returned today with the various forms filled out – one in triplicate, the other just duplicate. This seemed to do the trick and the lens will duly be sent somewhere. 

And on the subject of forms, when you send them into government departments they may return them to you with any mistakes or omissions highlighted so you can have another go.

People here do not seem particularly IT-literate. Helen’s two daughters went to school and college here. They would often shop online which was a mystery to all their classmates. Partly it is the general poor state of French websites – very old-fashioned.

France is still very insular and protectionist of their culture and economy. Many of the goods we’re familiar with buying very cheaply (because they come from China) are more expensive here because they are made locally. People do support their local shops and regional produce. They tend to holiday mainly in countries that speak French.

There are many empty houses in the countryside. The inheritance laws mean a property (land or house) is divided up amongst the children. This often makes farms uneconomic and requires all the children to agree on what to do with the property. As not all may agree on how to sell it and how to divide up the money, many are left in a state of limbo. Also, young people don’t want to live in the countryside where there are few jobs, nothing to do, and everyone around is ancient. The chance of selling a house quickly is not good - they may take years to sell. Unless a Brit comes along. There are a lot of ex-pats living here, either with a holiday home or permanently. And some, like our hosts, still work in Britain and commute. For a lot of them it is a way to realise a dream that is nearly impossible in Britain: to own a large house and land. Run down houses needing renovation can be had for 20,000 euros, larger ones ready to live in for under 100,000 euros.