I have hesitated in commenting for a few days, largely because a.) it's really a very political issue, and b.) I live here!. I'm going to refrain from comments on the riots, and just say how I find living here, after spending most of my life as an 'Anglo Saxon'.
The French in general are xenophobes; anything foreign is suspect, whether it's British immigrants and their horrid tea, 'ricain 'MacDonalds', ( contemptuously called McDoo) here, or bosch motor cars.
The French almost to a man buy French cars, eat traditional French food, and huffily dismiss most 'foreign stuff' as 'crap'. Ethnic restaurants are as rare as hens' teeth. 'Service' in shops is appalling, employees are virtually unsackable and some of their comments, ( not knowing that I'm fluent and understand all the swearwords and insults ), would make a New York cop blush! Work is not easy to get, even for native French citizens, and starting a small business, for immigrants like myself, is a nightmare of red tape, blocking manoevres and plain bloody-mindedness.
Here's an example. A friend, a British qualified chippie, has just started a carpentry business here, (cut-roof, slating, renovation and rockwall work). He needs a partner to make a two-man team. He can't afford an employee, as social security costs alone are $9 an hour, plus the 35 hour week plus sick-pay, holiday pay, insurance etc... Brit No 2 agrees to be a partner, they start work together. Authorities then say partner must also be a qualified chippie. He was a shipwright, for many years based in New Orleans, refitting ships' interiors. "Can't register, that's a different trade". "Can't register as a laboror, they don't exist in France."! Eventually he hit on the solution, he registered as the 'sales' guy - he had to work on the projects to assess costs for future quotes! One brilliant bureacratic suggestion was to have him as the bloody apprentice- he's 62!!! In fact, the local Brit 'sparky' has an apprentice- a 40 year old fully qualified motor mechanic!
Hopefully things can start to change. A senior centre-party figure stated this week that France was " Bloated with it's own impotence." (sic). Always a good sign when the elite realise certain things just ain't right.
Alan
