Lenox

Hi, I'm living in Spain and trying to figure something out... how many ex-pats, British and 'European', are living in France (roughly)? Thanks!

dmu

Hi, interesting question but impossible for a forum to answer, even roughly.
If it's important for you to know, then apply to the "Home Office" or official Statistics Office of all the countries that you are asking in. Even then, there'll be EU immigrants who haven't registered....
Can one ask why you are figuring this out and why you haven't asked on all the Europe forums?

Lenox

Just this week, in our local ex-pat newspapers, I read that there are 'one million', '450,000' and '280,000' British ex-pats living in Spain. (Many of them don't register with the Town Halls, so numbers vary...). there are (according to Spanish sources) a rough total of five million foreigners living here. Unlike, I think, in France, the Brits here in Spain tend to live in 'concentrations' - in pueblos along the coast.

Domino

then I and several on the BE Spain forum seem to be bucking the trend by Not living in concentration camps
Instead we live in or adjacent to villages that in some instances speak little or no English, but we get all the services such as butcher, fishmonger (3), greengrocer, bakers (6 but many bars also bake their own bread and sell it)
petrol station (2), bars (around 40 but 50 claimed by the locals), Spar, Dia, Paqui, and 24hr medical centre.

Oh, and we are over 100km inland, it gets freezing in the winter (good old Cold Weather Payment), and a bus once an hour into Granada every day for €1.85 if you have the Alsa tarjeta.

and we are registered with the town hall and have matriculated our cars and pay local car tax.

G'day

`

Lenox

There are, of course, exceptions...

cjm

For me it is about 'perceptions'. We have many Brit friends in our neck, the Vendée. Does it seem a lot, well in a sense, yes. But is that because we have a active French-English social group, possibly. I'd have to ask our French friends for an opinion I guess. Dordogne, known by many Brits as Dordogneshire because of the 'apparent' number of Brits there (Hi Ka Ora!), but what is the percentage against the established French population? Not sure. Can't answer your questions Lenox, there will be stats on the net if you want to dig down. Does it really matter, or judging by your strap line, do you need an audience to move to? Either way,good luck.

Lenox

The Junta de Andalucía (the Regional Authority) has caused a lot of problems for the British settlers here, waiting for their cheques to clear before branding their homes in the countryside as either 'illegal' or 'illegalish'. There are said to be 300,000 homes in this condition in Andalucía. Not, of course, all belonging to ex-pats, but enough of them to have caused an enormous reaction. How many retired people, potentially looking for a warm and peaceful climate to spend their final years, have been put off doing so in Southern Spain? Where might they have gone instead?
(How much money will Spain have lost with this performance... how many jobs...?)

cjm

Lenox, you began this thread querying numbers of peeps in France, but some of your words suggest anger and dissatisfaction. France is not Spain. Chalk and cheese. France does have pedantic paperwork to die for,but you have to go with the flow. It's not easy for the French either. My gut feeling is Brits try to be honest, may be wrong, but I know we try. If we have to discuss any issue, apart from strangling the language, we are met with frustrated help ('cos language limited), but we get by.

Novocastrian

I think, Lenox, what cjm is saying is, you made your bed, now lie in it and forget any sense of entitlement as a chukka British chappie living abroad to educate the unwashed.

cjm will correct me if I'm wrong.

cjm

You are never wrong. Luv the new piccie .... XXX

Peabrain

Very well put. Couldn't this message be displayed up over the exit ramp out of the Channel Tunnel in Calais, to replace the one that says "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"?

Lenox

Thanks all. It's true that many Spanish politicians have issues with common sense, but that's Ok. We have high unemployment in Andalucía - anything up to 40% in some provinces - so our plans and projects are not always well thought out.
Apart from a year living in Paris and some minor time in southern France, I've spent most of my life living in Spain. This makes me a European rather, I hope, than a chukka Brit.
Anyhow - any ideas on the numbers of Brits... and 'Europeans' (by which, to save time, I mean non-French north European and maybe a few tame American, Canadian and Australian settlers) living in France? It's to write a study on the subject for a Spanish newspaper.
Merci.

Hold on... another posting about Dover/Calais, toothy Brits and the garlic eaters. (reads post) I haven't been, or stepped foot, in England since around 1998. What's it like?

EuroTrash

[QUOTE=Lenox;10539368] It's to write a study on the subject for a Spanish newspaper.
Merci./QUOTE]

Well I hope your research for writing the study will rely on somewhat more reliable sources than asking the forum (naming no names but unlike certain expat journalos who write for certain UK tabloids! but one thing you would be fairly safe in saying - there's fewer Brits in France now than there were two years ago, and more than there will be by the end of this year.

Peabrain

What makes you say that? Where will they go? Back to the UK? To pastures new?
PB

cyrian

You might find this site interesting.
It could be something useful to direct people to when they ask about moving to France.
You have to navigate the various sections via the menu at the top because the site was lost and the pages were posted individually.
http://www.dontmovetofrance.co.uk/Do...ance/home.html

Sorry - it is off topic - but I think we had already gone elsewhere