Paul, The difference I noticed between the UK and France is whereas UK bureaucracy is total chaos on the arse / elbow level, French bureaucracy is smooothly professional, if seemingly complex. Once you have a dossier completed, you have no further worries, it all works like well-oiled clockwork.
(Just to relieve the boredom they do occasionally 'lose' the complete dossier and ask you to fill it all out again. I have learned to tell them to bloody well look for the old one, and this usually works!)
An Example: Go to doctor's cabinet ( surgery). See quack. Pay €21 on the spot, walk round to pharmacy, get medicine. Give chemist 'chipped' medicare card containing your full life history. Card swiped. Pay for medicine. Milliseconds later, bank account has been credited with €20 for the doctor, and reimbursement of a % of the chemist's bill. At the same time, my insurance pays into my bank the rest of the reimbursement = 100% repaid. For this I pay French Social Security and the Insurance Co.. And the only reason I pay is that after pouring 9% of my UK earnings into the so-called 'National Insurance Fund' in the UK for nigh on 40 years, after 2 1/2 years abroad they cut you adrift with nothing. What a fraud! Recently a new Junior Minister was announced in the House as being in charge of the 'Fund'(sic). Up pops a friendly Opposition Member; "May I inquire of the Honorable Member how much money is in this 'Fund' you are in charge of?". After a lot of blustering, he had to admit the Fund didn't even exist, and there was thus no money in it. Pull stunts like this in the private sector and you go to jail for fraud. They do it with £50,000 a year expenses on top.
As to the civil disturbances, I see Chirac is getting the figurative guillotine oiled. Certain hot-headed politicos are headed for the chop, notably the salopard who called immigrants scum.
A. Scum (retired)
