[Closed] working in france...

we have 8 sites in France, some of the senior management and younger office based staff at various of the sites do speak English, others don't, so I wouldn't expect to be able to get by in English

If, on the other hand, you do get lucky, you'll probably find your fluency increasing pretty quickly...

I lived and worked in France for 18 months. Loved it !.

Of ocurse, that was much earlier in the noughties.

Friend of mine ( a native ) from those days just happens to be working in the same office I am now............

He says that France aint good at the moment. His prescence here in the UK would seem to back this up.

My thinking is, if its so bad in France that my mate Frank has to come to.....England for work, then that just goes to show how grim it must be there on the work front.

And YES, you should be fluent french speaker, except for special conditions.

All that aside, if you do manage to find work there, then if I were you and twenty-something, again ( 🙁 ) then I'd leap at the chance.

Good luck

Nothing constructive to add....but

I love the way we bash the french for being "workshy" and only working 35 hr week, yet France nearly always tops the list as having the best quality of life in the world. And they dont accept the shite fruit and veg our supermarkets serve up.

Go for it!

Good luck, if I could I'd leave France, full of bigots, idiots and ruthless people...
Don't expect any of them to be able to queue correctly or to have any manners.
Plus job market at the moment is very difficult. And yes, you'll have to speak french. As you start working you'll have to get your carte vitale which will entitle you to the NHS. To get this when you're not french and you don't have work in France previously is quite hard and involve several trips to the "securité sociale". No go and get someone here that speaks english 😉

To get this when you're not french and you don't have work in France previously is quite hard and involve several trips to the "securité sociale".

It's pretty straightforward really. Mine dropped through the door this morning. After a mere 2 years!

Prepare for red tape aplenty!

I loved living and working in France though, and was about to consider going back!

To get this when you're not french and you don't have work in France previously is quite hard and involve several trips to the "securité sociale".

still waiting... only the 5 years....

To get this when you're not french and you don't have work in France previously is quite hard and involve several trips to the "securité sociale".

still waiting... only the 5 years....

Really!? I thought 2 years was bad! Carte Vitale genuinely just dropped through the door this morning.

BTW, you don't need the actual card to get French NHS, you're covered from the moment you declare yourself to be tax-resident in France. It's just a pain in the t*ts to get the money back on medical expenditure without it. (Especially when your Mrs throws out the box for the £100 wrist brace you've just been ordered to buy!) 😯

thekingisdead - Member

Nothing constructive to add....but

I love the way we bash the french for being "workshy" and only working 35 hr week, yet France nearly always tops the list as having the best quality of life in the world. And they dont accept the shite fruit and veg our supermarkets serve up.

Go for it!

I hate to break this to you but after 12 years living in France my mother has returned to the UK and one of the things she has noticed is how much better our supermarkets are in fresh produce! Her usual complaint with the French supermarket was the shoddy local veg & the don't give a shit attitude of the staff.
She said 15 years ago the French were pretty much leaders on the food producing front but they have lost that big style of late.

all that from one old lady's weekly shop presumably from the one supermarket?
😕

You will pick French up quite quickly - the most important phrase you'll need to begin with is something like "Pouvez-vous parler plus doucement, s'il vous plait?" which roughly translates as "please speak slower!"

New degree, young. Go to Australia.

Truly the land of opportunity for the enterprising.

And the weather is always good 🙂

One alternative would be French-speaking Switzerland. I work in Lausanne and there are some multinational companies here for who the main working language is English. There would be a lot more choice in Geneva, especially with all the NGOs änd companies moving here from the UK. There is a WWF headquarters near Geneva which might suit your profession?

Whether any of these people would hire graduates with no work experience is another matter, most people transfer here from an established post in the UK or elsewhere...
It's quite common to take on a "stagère" (apprentice) who will work for low money with the possibility of going permanent, but I think these are arranged through local universities..

As people have mentioned, prepare for a whole world of bureaucracy and form filling, I think it's worse here than in France...

Links:
[url= http://www.englishforum.ch/ ]English Forum - useful resource for expats[/url]
[url= http://www.jobup.ch/ ]Job Up - job site[/url]
[url= http://www.michelthomas.co.uk/french.htm ]Michel Thomas - French course that I found very useful[/url]

Good Luck!

Teach English, then your level of French isnt so important.

thanks guys, i'll ive this all a good read and look at the links. i'd already thought of geneva etc, and its a definite possibility... have done some work for a french NGO, which i think has offices in geneva...

epicyclo, australia is another on the list. just don't know hwo to go anout it all 🙁

Her usual complaint with the French supermarket was the shoddy local veg

While not "utterly desparate" as you are, I have also thought about how feasible it would be to move to france.

I reckon the easiest way of doing it would be to make a living in a way that doesn't require you to interact with the locality, i.e. internet based.

If you can do something like, say, design websites, then you can be remote from your client(s) and as long as you have got access to the internet then you can do your work, and get paid.

A bloke in our office wanted to move to new zealand, but instead of looking for a new job out there, in anticipation of quitting his job with us in the uk, he basically said to the company, i'm moving to new zealand whether you like it or not, however if you want to continue to employ me in a remote capacity then I'm more than willing to continue doing my work in new zealand and communicating via skype.
They said yes, and not only is he still employed with us but he got a commendation for 'embracing remote working' and being loyal to the company or something like that.

alternatively , why not cash in on other people having the exact same sentiment that you are having - set up a biking holidays business, just get a van and do supported bike tours and/or guided mountain biking.

don't really have remote skills, i hate computers 🙁

and i'm not really good enough to do a mtb company 🙁