French Leave

by Liz Ryan

  Materially, I’d been doing fine back home. I had a good job, a lovely house, lots of clothes and holidays and a new car every few years. It was fun – until it all inexplicably began to itch like a hair shirt. I was exhausted and dispirited, tasting nothing, enjoying nothing any more. No amount of money can compensate for living a life that tastes like sawdust. It’s at this point that so many people seem to start thinking about France – where, the myth persists, it is possible to live on peaches and baguettes.

  No. It is not. Do not for one moment believe this myth. Peaches may make you healthy, but they are not enough to make you happy. Even if the sale of your house furnishes a temporary cushion, money is going to be an issue for the vast majority of ‘economic migrants’, as well as for ardent francophiles. Your attitude to it is going to be another. Learning to let go of your previous lifestyle can be amazingly liberating, but it takes time. The first months, or even years, can be spectacularly scary: letting go of anxiety takes even longer to learn than letting go of habits, of expectations, of toys and treats.

  France is dazzlingly seductive for the committed consumer. The bakery windows glow like art galleries, the chic shops flaunt their exquisite shoes, handbags and furniture, the restaurants beckon with their iced trays of seafood and champagne, the goodies are endlessly gorgeous. In shops like the FNAC, you can spend an entire day in the books or music section alone. Certain IKEA branches are so big, I recommend that you bring a picnic and a compass. On the autoroutes, Porsches commonly fly by, silver cabriolets being driven by beautiful people to beautiful places. The upmarket resorts of Nice, Deauville and St Tropez purr with Rollers and Beamers. The entire country is chock-full of magnificent chateaux, its wines are divine, its sartorial elegance is legendary. Even now, in the midst of global recession, it remains, very quietly, very wealthy. Its temptations are endless.

  Which, for anyone trying to downsize, means a battle. Yes, that chocolate cake is a Matisse masterpiece, but you can’t afford it! Yes, the Printemps has just got in the most beautiful new bedlinen on the planet, but you can’t buy any! Okay, one bottle of wine then, but make it last the week! No, don’t even think about putting on the central heating, put on a woolly jumper! Anyone moving to France to live the simple life should be warned: your nose will be permanently pressed up against the gleaming shop window.

  At first, it’s hell. Material guys and girls have to be weaned off their goodies, and that doesn’t happen overnight. It is very hard to admit that yes, you were a consumer addict. To admit to your friends that no, you won’t be changing your clattering old banger this year, or next year, or maybe not even after that. (One of the most socially divisive things the Irish government ever did was to introduce a car-registration system whereby the car’s age is clearly stated, creating a competitive state of mind that can take years to unlearn.)

  It’s not easy to say ‘No, sorry, I’d love to go out to dinner but, um, why don’t you come round here instead?’ (And then to magic potatoes into gourmet marvels.) Even going to the supermarket hurts, because it will have the latest flat-screen TVs, gorgeous clothes and a deli to die for. You’ll feel like the only child at the party who isn’t getting any present.

  But hey, you’re off the hamster wheel! I used to fume in stagnant traffic for twelve hours a week; now I walk round the local lake or by the sea for an hour every morning. Walking is free. And yes, it feels good. It feels great. The fresh air and freedom are absolutely exhilarating, as well as the fitness aspect. Burning your bridges can be wonderfully invigorating. No, there won’t be any trendy bistro lunch as a reward for the walk, but my cooking has improved along with my shopping; I can make a delicious meal for two people for a fiver. I’ve discovered that a fish called lieu tastes just as good as cod or monkfish, for less than half the price. I can make a vat of carrot or beetroot soup for a euro – not only is it delicious, it gives you turbocharged energy, and you’ll never get ‘flu again. I’m still wearing the jeans and sweaters I brought from Ireland, because here in my little hamlet the concept of ‘dress to impress’ is unknown, and my wardrobe is full of long-redundant little black numbers. (When starvation looms, I can open a vintage-clothing shop.)

  But a city dweller must miss the arts, surely? The concerts, the cinema, the galleries? Not necessarily … not when you’re busy reading the hundreds of books you never had time for before. Not when you make friends with a musician who invites you to rehearsals, or when you’ve got television programmes as good as Des Racines et Des Ailes to keep you entertained on winter nights. Once a month, lots of French art galleries, historic sites, museums and so on open their doors for free; all you’ve got to do is find out which ones on which days. Morning cinema screenings are half price, and going to the cinema in the morning feels delightfully decadent. When you’ve winkled them out, you discover that an amazing number of activities cost little or nothing, which adds an extra dimension to what would be a pleasure anyway. Once a spoiled shopaholic, now I get a kick out of finding products that work just as well as the luxury brands.

  Nowadays, my treats are laughably modest: magazines in English – admittedly expensive ones like Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair – and the exotic shower gels for which I have a strange craving. Now and then I go to a concert or a restaurant, but I no longer take them for granted, and, as addictions go, at least these little goodies don’t require mortgages.

  Let nobody kid themselves. Moving to France (or Spain, or Italy, or wherever) might be a seductive dream, but it has its price tag. You need to try it on for size before committing, spend a month in some crumbling old cottage in winter, making the kids eat garlic and green beans because, hey, McDonald’s is history now! Sign up for the Alliance Française and see if you really can learn French – especially that little-known word non, which you will be needing more than any other.

  Non, je ne regrette rien. Within weeks of arriving in France, I was loving the simple life, doing nothing more exciting than walking, cycling, reading, listening to music, swimming at the beach – whatever’s cheap or free. A friend gave me a pot of homemade chutney one day, and I was as thrilled as if she’d given me a gourmet hamper. (Okay, sad, but true.) I can’t afford aerobics, massages or a personal fitness programme, but I do have a bike, skates, a skipping rope and a village tennis court – even cliffs to climb – if I want high-octane exercise for free. Once a week, we gather to play ping-pong, chess, Scrabble and Boggle in our village salle des fêtes – which, I’m not ashamed to admit, amuses me as much as many a star-spangled soirée ever did (especially since the glitterati became the illiterati). Yes, of course I’d love a sleek new car, or to get the garden landscaped, but lack of these things is not fatal. You learn to look at the scruffy garden and cultivate a Gallic shrug.

  Ironically, I feel richer than before. Younger, fitter, happier. Here in big-sky country, amidst the creamy cows and golden crops, where the air is so pure we sleep like stones, where the fields of blue flax and red poppies ripple for miles, it would take a lot for anyone to feel truly impoverished. I used to have a lot. Now, less is a lot more.

  French income tax (should you have an income) is relatively low. But it is merely the first of endless taxes whose final total is spectacularly high. There is VAT, at nearly 20 percent, on absolutely everything. There is tax on your house, your water, gas, phone, electricity, petrol, food, insurance, pharmaceuticals and clothing; in some cases, there is even tax on tax. There are autoroute tolls, parking meters, medical bills and emergency repairs, and, as everywhere, there are thieves waiting to rip off the unwary. Especially if the unwary is a single woman, or driving a foreign car.

  One day, I was heading for Dinard in Brittany when the car started making one of those alarming splut-splut noises. I pulled into a garage. Oh dear, said the owner-mechanic, there’s a major problem here. You’ve wrecked your carburettor with supermarket petrol. That’s what comes of not buying petrol from proper garages like mine.

  But, I pointed out, supermarket petrol works fine. Eve
ryone’s been using it for decades. Anyway, can you fix the car, or what?

  He nodded. Bien sûr. But it’s a big job. Major surgery. It’ll cost a thousand euro.

  I thought about it. His comment about the petrol was ringing alarm bells.

  ‘No. Too expensive. I’ll just have to hope the car holds up until I can get it home to my local mechanic.’

  The car did hold up, and eventually came to roost in the workshop of my resolutely cheerless, but honest, garagiste. He opened the bonnet. Peered in. Tweaked a rubber pipe.

  ‘Et voilà. Just a loose connection. All fixed.’

  The ten-second repair was so small that he wouldn’t take a centime for it. But how many frantic foreigners have since forked over thousands to that crook in Brittany?

  Dashing for a plane another day, I was held to ransom at another garage. Fifty euro, for emergency replacement wipers. The same ones that cost a fiver in the supermarket. The old ones were chucked into a bucket full of similar ones – all destined, I suspected, for vastly profitable recycling. My experience of the French car industry is that it’s staffed by a high proportion of licensed gangsters, who regard foreigners (identifiable by their accents) as sitting ducks. Don’t be intimidated, and buy all your accessories in supermarkets where possible. Generic products work just as well as fancy brands, at half the price. But a car remains a luxury: some autoroute tolls are all but armed robbery, and parking and speeding tickets are generally acknowledged to be a lucrative rip-off. The only way to avoid speeding tickets in many areas is to drive in third gear, if not first – which generates the permanent feeling that you are following a funeral cortège. Sometimes you’d nearly get further in reverse.

  On the other hand, some products remain cheaper in France. Wine and cheese, obviously, shellfish for some obscure reason, and hotels. Virtually every village has some little auberge which, while not luxurious, is clean and comfortable, and offers excellent value if you don’t mind the offhand welcome or the forty-watt bulbs. Even better value – especially if your house-hunting is going to take a month or two, which it should – is to stay in a gîte. Apart from economising by cooking your own meals, you can pick up invaluable local tips from the owners about houses for sale: bargain houses, houses that shouldn’t be touched with a bargepole, houses that are the subject of domestic dispute or were flooded last winter … it is possible to save not only a lot of money but a lot of heartache.

  Saving money is, for many, a priority. But it doesn’t always happen. I didn’t expect to have to replace the washing machine, fridge, computer, dishwasher and car so soon … but I did. A storm blew tiles off the roof, they cost a fortune to replace and naturally the insurance only paid a fraction of the bill. Ditto when the computer was assassinated by lightning – twice. A week of ice ripped the surface off the front wall – too expensive to repair, a coat of paint had to suffice – and yet another storm killed the pump in the driveway while I was away, leaving the basement to fill with water for several days. The resulting plumber’s bill was cosmic. And how to dry out the basement?

  Easy, said the expert I consulted, just install one of our wonderful ventilation systems. See, it’s today’s special bargain at seven thousand euro. Sign here.

  I left nature to take its course, and the basement dried out all by itself. For free.

  Money, as the saying goes, only matters when you haven’t got any. After a surprisingly short time in France, many of the romantics who envisaged living on tomatoes find that they haven’t got any. (Money, that is, anyone can grow tomatoes.) They panic. They sell their houses and return to Ireland, Britain or wherever, sometimes throwing themselves on the mercy of friends or family, bitterly regretting the whole disastrous project that was France. Sometimes even blaming France for somehow failing to fill their pockets with mysterious, magical funds. Whereas all they need to do is visit their local employment exchange, chamber of commerce or mairie, to announce their availability to teach English.

  France’s appetite for English lessons is insatiable. It is acutely conscious of needing this vital commercial skill in today’s marketplace. Whether it likes learning English is another matter – some students are nakedly resentful – but it has definitely bitten the bullet. Many companies even pay their employees’ tuition fees. Sometimes the government even pays. While teaching English may not be the most exciting job in the world, it is a useful fall-back.

  No degree, no diploma, no experience? No matter. Language schools such as Wall Street or Berlitz will train you in their own methods, and even offer flexibility in your work schedule. At local level (chambers of commerce, private companies, municipal associations, or – shudder – children’s tutorials), you can make use of the excellent material on the BBC website. All you really need to teach English is a smile, a positive attitude, and clear diction.

  It’s a transitory job, not a career, and as such the pay isn’t great. But it’s a comforting security blanket for anyone determined to stay in France, it will keep the roof over your head while offering the chance of networking. Many of the students have, by definition, interesting jobs with interesting contacts – which, if you work them well, may lead to something more lucrative in the long term.

  Alternatively, many new anglophone arrivals yearn for someone who can set up their computer, satellite dish, home cinema and so on, in English. If you’re good at technology, just put an ad in your local paper or supermarket, and hey, you’re in business.

  Until, at least, the fiscs start wanting to know about your VAT returns and corporate tax and … this is one reason why France has such a high rate of unemployment. As in the Ireland of thirty or forty years ago, enterprise is viewed with suspicion. In one of his solecisms that actually made sense, George Bush famously said that ‘The problem with the French is, they don’t have a word for “entrepreneur”.’ And, in a manner of speaking, they don’t. Is it any wonder? The paperwork (and advance taxation) required to set up a business is so nightmarish that it’s a lot easier to go on the dole. It’s a vicious circle, with the authorities retorting that the paperwork relating to unemployment keeps an army of civil servants off the dole. Even though the ‘Polish plumber’ phenomenon has forced France to ‘liberalise’ some of its employment legislation, the mindset is still protectionist.

  So, whether you’re teaching English, or setting up computers, or even making pâté for a living, keep it small, keep it simple, and aim for the ‘micro-entreprise’ tax category. Simplicity is, after all, one of the attractions of life in France: if you aspire to get rich quick, Tokyo or Manhattan might suit you better.

  One day, finally getting my mitts on enough money to butter a baguette, I tried to lodge the cheque in my bank account. Peering at it as if it might be a blueprint for nuclear holocaust, the bank teller sucked his teeth. ‘Hmm. Drawn on Barclays? That’ll take a month to clear.’ A month!

  Eh oui. Although I was only trying to lodge the cheque, not cash it, the clerk was adamant. A month it would take, and a month it did, even though the nearest French branch of Barclays was barely an hour away.

  Yes, France is full of lovely food. You just wouldn’t want to be in a hurry to eat it.

  But in spite of everything, some people do succeed in accidentally amassing serious money. People like tennis star Amélie Mauresmo, actor John Malkovich, singers Charles Aznavour, Yannick Noah and Johnny Hallyday, all of whom have one thing in common: being forced out of France by the wealth tax.

  France currently defines ‘wealth’ as seven hundred and fifty thousand euro. Anyone worth that much, or more, can expect to be hounded by the government for such vast quantities of ISF (Impôt Sur Fortune) that, in many cases, they simply sell up and leave, sometimes sobbing as they go. Johnny Hallyday, a national icon whose songs regularly top the charts, loathed leaving for Switzerland, but said he had no choice. Should the next government be socialist, chances are that the screw will be turned even tighter. And proper order too, say France’s legions of socialists and communists, many of
whom have yet to make the connection between enterprise, jobs and money.

  This book isn’t about politics. Let’s not get into a wrangle over fat cats or bolshie agitators or the complexities of European economics. Personally, it’s all I can do to keep up when the checkout girl says that will be cent quatre-vingt dix-sept euro et soixante-treize centimes, s’il vous plaît. So suffice it to say that you have been warned. If you’re truly poor, or disinclined to work (at anything other than the system), or don’t understand contraception, France will feed, house, educate, medicate, rehabilitate, counsel and comfort you and your famille nombreuse. If you are dynamic or rich, or both, you will be bled dry, or washed away to Guernsey on a tide of taxes. If you’re somewhere in the middle, you will muddle along hand to mouth provided you don’t make the fatal mistake of (a) trying to better your lot, or (b) protesting about the dozens of dependents with whom the state has saddled you. Even my own modest tax bills would indicate that I seem to be putting triplets through college.

  Which is really as much as you need to know. Entrepreneurs apply at their peril.

  For years, you had a salary. Steady, secure. Health care too, and a pension plan. None of it seemed very exciting at the time, but now, in retrospect, it seems fabulous. Were you insane to chuck it all in for France?

  This question will nibble at you for at least the first year or two of your new life. You will be haunted by memories of money. The heady days when you could just waltz out and buy new shoes, theatre tickets or a Chinese takeaway without even thinking about it. Sometimes, I still whimper when I think of that monthly salary statement all figured out by somebody else. I didn’t even have to do the maths. Difficult as it is to walk away from regular injections of money, it’s even more difficult to walk away from the luxury of having someone else do the paperwork.