Foreign Perspectives

Although your first thought might be that Americans in France would end up, for the most part, in the same areas of France as the Brits, this isn’t actually the case so funnily enough there is very little interaction between the two communities.

Generally speaking, the Brits end up in Brittany/Normandy, Dordogne/Loire, and Provence with the Americans largely confined to Paris, though obviously there are a lot of exceptions to this.

One of the more complete sites is Americans in France which seems to be a fairly complete reference guide for Americans aiming to move over here. Interestingly for me is that they still need to declare their income to the US tax authorities.

Of interest to the parents amongst us is the list of bilingual schools. You might think that the list on the site “must” be too short. There are bound to be more bilingual schools in France, aren’t there? Well, there might be a few more but there aren’t an awful lot more which is something you may want to factor in when you’re considering where in France you might want to settle. If you don’t arrange bilingual teaching for your children from about age 11-18, they will not be fluent English speakers and that will set them at a major disadvantage in their future life.

Not listed on the site are the international schools though there aren’t many of these either and bilingual is the way to go. International schools don’t raise children to fluency in both languages as you might expect.

Anyway, lots to see on the site.