Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

One of the stranger aspects of us living here is the different way that James & John refer to things.

As we’re in France, they aren’t picking up english from kids at school as they’d normally do but rather picking it up from home and the TV. This means that it’s possible for us to pick out where they’ve learnt a word. So, by and large, they “speak cooking” with an Australian accent and they “speak computer” with a Belfast accent.

It’s also interesting that whilst both James & John refer to “Granda” and “Nanny here”, James who used to be looked after by my parents has “Granda’s Nanny”, John who was born here has “Nanny at the airport” as that’s usually the last place that he sees her.

We think that it was because Wendy was looking after James a lot more when he was younger than I was that he has developed a largely Australian accent but with us both being around much more equally since John was born he has a much more pronounced Belfast accent. You’d have thought that since James has been here over 60% of his life now that his accent would have become more balanced but it hasn’t done, or at least not yet so I guess that it’s the first couple of years that are the most important in terms of accent

This is how the Canigou mountain is supposed to look from around late October through to around April ie lots of snow all over it.

I’d planned to take a photo of it with the flowering fruit trees in the foreground and snow covered mountain in the background for over a year now. Quite hard to do actually as there are usually only a few weeks in which you can take it each year and, of course, you can’t really depend on the weather being perfect for your photos.

In fact, it wasn’t possible to take this year simply because it hasn’t been snow covered since March last year. Ever since then, it’s been pretty much constantly t-shirt weather where we are and the montain has only been mainly snow covered for stretches of a few days at a time over the whole of that period.

Funnily enough, whilst it’s been t-shirt weather all that time, now that we’re heading into Summer, we’re getting the winds that we normally associate with February (when we didn’t get them) along with the rain and generally dull conditions that are more a Winter-time thing here.

Is the freakish weather an aspect of global warming? It’s much too early to say that of course but one thing that people forget is that a “global warming” doesn’t necessarily mean that everywhere gets warmer and in fact many places would experience unusual weather conditions due to the changing weather patterns that a global warming would bring.

Almost all of the press coverage that you see is of the view that global warming is a “bad thing” and we should be getting the finger out to stop it happening. But, is it?

This is a painting by Hondius in 1684 of one of the regular Frost Fairs taking place on the Thames. In fact both the Thames and the Baltic Sea froze over quite regularly in the 1600s.

That was prior to the industrial revolution of course and combined with a much lower population, pollution at that time was considerably less than it would have been 150 or so years later. The “Black Country” wasn’t named that for nothing as it was filled with major league polluters during the industrial revolution.

Did the industrial revolution stop us getting into another ice age? Nobody can really say as there are just too many variables in the equation: you’ve everything from the industrial revolution raising pollution levels considerably to sunspot cycles and to top it all the records over the period simply weren’t accurate or complete enough to really give a definitive answer.

What if the alternative to global warming were global cooling? Would that be a “good thing”?

I find the cemeteries in France really fascinating.

Naturally there are loads of military ones around the sites of past battles in the two world wars. The second world war ones up around the Normandy beaches are perhaps the most impressive in terms of the sheer scale of carnage that they represent. However, in addition to those there are many much smaller WW1 cemetries dotted around the landscape. The area of the Somme has untold numbers of these from the large Thiepval and numerous smaller versions in that area from the Ulster Tower to relatively small Australian ones.

One thing that they all have in common is that every single grave in them is still well tended for, no matter how long ago the death occured. As we were going through the Somme cemeteries last year, every one looked as though it was only filled a few weeks ago. Don’t forget that these graves are getting on for 100 years old by now too. The reason for this is simple of course: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission  really live up to the phrase “they shall not be forgotten” and are constantly caring for the graveyards and refurbishing the headstones.

Of course, they don’t just look after the major graveyards and the photo here is that of the brother of my grandfather sitting in a cemetery in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, one of a couple of dozen or so scattered around that particular graveyard.

One wonders whether that title will attract the attention of the French authorities but it probably won’t.

We’ve been living here for over three years now with no residence permit (Carte de Séjour) for Wendy and now pretty much accept that she’ll almost certainly never get one. Now, in every other country that would be something of a problem in that Wendy would be deported indeed she would already have been deported. Not in France though.

How come we can do that?

Well, what we did was apply for her Carte de Séjour within 90 days of us arriving here. Actually, we applied for the European version of that ie the Carte de Séjour Europeenne but that wouldn’t really have mattered as it turns out.

The CdS is something of an unusual beast in that the only documents that the authorities are legally allowed to ask for are a passport and a proof of relationship. This being France, they actually asked for around 30 separate documents which we refused to provide and there things stopped. We received no further contact from the Prefecture (who are responsible for issuing it) but did enquire a few times and they said they were awaiting for documentation from us (ie the documents that we had refused to supply).

About a year later, we thought we’d have another go. Different staff this time, and we managed to get somewhat further, eventually ending up with a letter from OMI (the immigration department) asking for EUR 220. As noted above the only things that they can legally ask for are a passport and proof of relationship, there’s no mention of money in the European law because they’re not allowed to ask for any. So, I sent off a letter pointing this out. No response.

Late last year, we made a start yet again. Turns out that they had lost the file (although, funnily enough, they seemed able to refer to some information that it contained!). Anyway, different staff again and we were assured that the permit was on its way. The temporary permit arrived in due course and, as it’s about to expire, we enquired. That in turn triggered off the letter from OMI with a bill this time of EUR 275 so I must dig out my own letter again.

So, if you fancy being an illegal alien in France, it’s really very easy. Once you get here, apply for your Carte de Séjour but leave out a few documents that they’re asking for. This totally throws the system apparently as we were told several times that our file had been put to the one side awaiting the documents which, of course, were never going to arrive. Eventually, your file is put away and nobody is ever likely to follow up on it after that happens.

This relies on one aspect that seems innately French: they obey authority and said authority assumes that it will be obeyed ie if they demand some document, then obviously it will arrive. Step outside that framework and it totally throws the system.

So, if you fancy being an illegal immigrant in Europe, don’t bother with the UK as they’ll deport you for sure. Head for France, apply for your Carte de Séjour but omit at least one document asked for and then just settle into life here.