Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

Whilst most countries in the world tend to move forward in terms of the use and usability of technology, it’s often the case in France that it’s one step forward, two backward.

Case in point: just a few weeks ago we noticed that Carrefour had, at last, started to accept foreign cards in their petrol stations and we thought that this was the first sign of the “promised land” of being able to use foreign cards in all petrol stations. Sadly, no. A matter of days later, the only petrol station that we know of within about 100 miles of us that did accept foreign cards on Sunday installed brand new petrol pumps and no longer accepts foreign cards!

This seems particularly short-sighted in light of the experience of the petrol station closest to the airport. Last year, it was “upgraded” from a manned station to being fully automated. Previous to that, there were always queues of cars getting petrol. Now, there are never any queues because the bulk of their potential customers can’t use the pumps anymore. Funnily enough, the pumps offer the choice of four languages but just don’t accept any foreign cards.

Why is that though? After all, even in France the old style cards will be phased out by the end of this year and just about all the other countries in Europe seem to be issuing new chip & PIN cards.

Petrol stations aren’t the only example of this craziness. The ultimate expression of that is the village of Tautavel which lives on tourism. Last year, due to the complications that the combined introduction of foreign chip & PIN cards plus the various banks upgrading their machines to accept them, all the tourist shops decided to stop accepting cards altogether. So, what happens now if you arrive at the till will EUR 100 or so of souvenir pots etc. is that they’ll point you towards the cash machine across the road. Now, for French people, that’s fine as they have debit cards and therefore don’t pay any more to withdraw cash from the ATM than they would to use their card in the shop BUT almost all foreigners use credit cards and therefore would have to pay cash advance fees plus interest.

Overall effect? Well, it’s fine for the French or for those who are buying small quantities of souvenirs but the customers wanting to make larger purchases just walk away. The shops can’t understand why: after all, in their eyes, there’s no difference in cost for the customer as they’re pretty much entirely unaware of the extra costs they’re asking their customers to pay.

The other consequence is that several of the shops are looking rather shaky and seem sure to close. I suspect that the same could easily happen to the airport petrol station too.

Arnold

If you’ve been watching the “moving to France” TV series that seem to be on almost non-stop these days, you’d think that there would be no problem in getting kids into school here. After all, the kids just seem to go to the local school and if they don’t speak French, it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Perhaps you’re thinking that the presence of a TV crew eases the process considerably and I’ve no doubt that it does. However, we’ve friends and aquaintances in other regions of France and they’ve never had a problem in getting their children enrolled in school regardless of age or ability in French.

Things are different in the Pyrenees Orientale though.

If your child isn’t a fluent French speaker by the time they hit 16, then they will not be educated by any school in the state education system within the Pyrenees Orientale. What happens at that age is that you are passed onto Inspection Academic who in turn pass you on to the College Albert Camus and specifically the CIPPA class so that you can learn French and thereby get into an appropriate lycee (for age 17-18). There is only one problem with that scenario: Madame Benzine runs CIPPA as a remedial class for children from French speaking countries and just treats any non-French speakers as an inconvenience to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The net effect of that is that if your child has no other option than CIPPA (and they won’t be given any other option if they reach 16 and don’t speak French fluently here), then that’s the end of their education.

Surely, not? Don’t children have some right to education up to 18? I thought so, but apparently the French locally read the fact that schooling is optional after age 16 as meaning that they don’t need to provide it and in particular don’t need to provide any means to teach you French after age 16. Having said that, everyone in the administrative side of education seems to think that CIPPA does actually teach French (and perhaps it is supposed to) but Madame Benzine chooses to ignore that and seems to go out of her way to encourage non-French speakers to leave the class as soon as possible. “You missed a class because your car was being repaired and the bus drivers were on strike? You should have walked in”. “How? It’s over 30km: it would have taken five or six hours”. “I gave him a question sheet every morning and he didn’t answer any of the questions on it. He has no motivation.” Emmm, he can’t read French and couldn’t understand the questions. “It’s mathematics: of course he could understand it:. He’s just lazy. ” Actually, no, because the questions are entirely in French. That’s the kind of person running CIPPA in Perpignan.

It’s not much easier from age 11 to 16 either, as all colleges that don’t have to take your child, quite simply won’t take them if they don’t speak fluent French (and I do stress “fluent”: they won’t accept anything less). Instead, they will direct you toward the Inspection Academic in Perpignan who in turn will pass directly to the CIPPA class. If your child is in that age range, you can get them accepted into the college designated for your commune but even then it’s not always easy but never accept the CIPPA option if your child is in that age range.

What about primary school then? That’s a little easier than the college as they are attached to the various mairies therefore the one associated with your commune will have to take your children from age 6 to 11. However, those not attached to your commune will usually refuse to accept your child unless they happen to be fluent French speakers. Would you be happy with your 11 year old having to get up around 6am to catch the first bus into town, then changing buses in the centre of town to get to a remedial class in a country where they don’t speak the language? That’s the option you’ll be given if you don’t push the matter with your own mairie.

We have, surprisingly, managed nursery school with, so far, no problems. However, we fully expect that James will encounter problems getting into primary school in this area. Even now, the local doctor couldn’t understand why he couldn’t speak French. Why would he? If we spoke French to him he’d just end up with a dreadful French accent not to mention bad grammar and vocabulary. Oh, and he’d not learn to speak English.

The strange thing is that the French always talk about integrating immigrants into French society. I don’t know about elsewhere, but in the Pyrenees Orientale, it’s definitely all talk because there’s certainly no support given to you if your children don’t speak fluent French.

The other strange thing is that the teachers (except Madame Benzine) all seem to be quite supportive of the kids and fully expect that children of all ages will pick up the language fairly quickly. The problem seems to be that the administrators simply won’t let them try and without the approval of an administrator you just can’t get into a school.

Arnold

Customer service is one of those wooly concepts that few people really think about most of the time. OK, just about every place has a “customer service” department in some form but as far as most people are concerned, it’s where you go when you’ve some kind of problem. Change of address? Just see Customer Service? Want a refund? Customer Service deals with that.

At the other extreme you have the likes of First Direct where there doesn’t seem to be a “customer service” department as such because everyone you talk to considers that it’s their business to be serving you. In fact, in over 10 years of using them, I’ve only once or twice been referred to someone else and that’s been for a specialist thing like buying shares or whatever.

What we all forget though is that “customer service” isn’t something that the Customer Service department do. It’s done in part by everyone in the various companies that we deal with.

Except in France.

Here, the customer very definitely is considered an inconvenience to be tolerated. Not just in the dreadful companies either.

Consider Carrefour, one of the largest retailing company in the world. In France, it charges EUR 25 for a charge card that can only be used in its own stores. In Spain it offers a Visa card free of charge. Why? Simply because the French will tolerate such behaviour and the Spanish won’t.

Last year we ordered heating oil from them because they said on their adverts that we could pay by card. I even checked that when I called to order the oil. As it happened we were out the day that it was delivered so the delivery guy left a phone number for us to call to make the payment. We called them. Nope, we don’t do that, call this other number. Nope, we don’t do that, call this number instead. Turned out that was the number we had just called so they said a supervisor would call us back. A month later a reminder arrived to say we’d not paid so I faxed them with the card details. About two months later a further, slightly threatening letter arrived telling us to pay up or else. I posted a recorded delivery letter this time (businesses often ignore anything that isn’t recorded delivery in France). A week later, I got a call from a guy who wouldn’t take my card details for the payment but said that he’d get someone else to phone me back. No phone call but a month later we get a letter saying that our case had been passed on to the debt collectors and adding EUR 100 or so of charges. I faxed and posted yet another recorded delivery letter itemising the above saga and telling them to come and collect the money (legally businesses in France must accept cash). Finally, I got a call from the debt collection guy who admitted that in fact they don’t accept payment by card because the machines that they had issued to the delivery guys don’t work. So, in Carrefour the customer is definitely a nuisance to be passed on to someone else if at all possible.

Just two weeks ago I was in Santiago. We could have had breakfast in the place we were staying but instead thought that it would be nicer to have it in the town instead. As it happened we got a little lost on the way (and had a very pleasant tour of the town along the way) so were looking for something to eat around 11am. We had loads of choice and ended up in a nice little cafe just behind the cathedral. In France, we’d have had no choice at all: outside noon to 2pm restaurants simply won’t serve food. In fact this reaches the peak of absurdity in Perpignan airport where the restaurant is only open from noon to 2pm yet until quite recently there were no flights at that time ie no customers!

This nonsense extends to almost all areas of retailing. Whereas elsewhere most shops open during lunch to catch everyone else, here almost all shops lie closed.

Even three years down the line, it still confuses us. For instance, last year a couple came to us enquiring about us hosting their wedding reception. We gave them a few ideas for the meal but said that we could change that around to suit them, never thinking anything about that. Turns out that we were the only restaurant to offer them the chance to tailor the meal to suit them. In France, when you go to a restaurant asking about hosting your reception, the restaurant give you their wedding menu and that’s it: take it or leave it, you certainly can’t make any changes. How crazy is that?

At the end of last year we had someone from a French hotel staying with us. One comment that he made really struck us as symtomatic of the low level of customer service that is experienced throughout France: “This is France. You always greet guests in French”. Actually, no, you don’t: you should, of course, greet them in their own language where possible. At least it’s “of course” everywhere else in the world, just not in France.

Why is it like that here yet completely different in Spain? I think because the French just put up with it whereas the Spanish won’t.

So in France, customer service means telling the customers to clear off and come back sometime that it suits the employees.

Arnold

You may have seen news of the extensive fires in the Gallician countryside over the last couple of weeks.

Naturally, in the summer fire breaks out in numerous areas of Spain but a considerable number of these were set deliberately. I was staying at the University of Santiago and the fires came within about 1km of the university campus which is rather too close for comfort. Think of the heat and smoke coming from a log fire in your home and magnify that 1000 fold and you’ll get some idea of the problems that this causes. Surprisingly though, some homes on the hill opposite the university seemed to be virtually intact despite having been surrounded by the intense forest fires. I wonder though if they were quite so unscathed as they appeared to be when seen from a distance?

The fires were largely spent by the time I arrived but by that time the population had begun to hold a series of protest rallies. Interestingly for me was that they felt very much like the protest rallies that you see now and again in Northern Ireland so I guess this is another sign of the celtic heritage of the region. Even the slogans were quite similar with “Ulster says No” translating to “Nunca Mais” (Never Again) and, of course, the use of bagpipes. All that was absent was the police in riot gear!

Arnold

James started his education in France today in a nice little country school not far from us.

Frankly, we were quite amazed how easy it was to get him accepted at the school. Back in June we found out that the enrollment for the school closed on June 23rd so it was a bit of a rush to get to the school to find out what they needed from us to enrol him there. A birth certificate, of course, then they wanted a copy of his insurance (all of EUR 10 a year), medical certificate and, as we don’t live in the schools commune, a letter from our mayor to say that he was OK about James going to their school. Very surprisingly, they didn’t consider farming him out to some school for non-French speakers which is the usual tactic in this area.

So far, he seems very happy with the school and couldn’t wait to get back after lunch.

We’re told that he’ll be speaking his first French words in a few weeks. You’d think that he would grow up bilingual but that’s not usually the case unless you put the kids into a bilingual school. Just before we bought this place we met someone who would “obviously” be bilingual: he was born in France around 20 years ago to English parents. In fact, although he had a perfect english accent he wasn’t fluent in english. How come? Well, 20 odd years ago there was no satellite TV, no Amazon and few brits in that particular area of France. Net effect was that the only english he heard was that of his parents so his accent is perfect but when he reached maybe 12 or 13 he started to go out with his friends more than being in with his parents. So, his english is that of a 12 or 13 year old. For instance, although he was working as an estate agent, he didn’t know the names for parts of houses because, of course, those are words that you learn as an adult. All his specialist vocabulary would be French too as it’s hardly likely that his parents would have spoken to him about geography or physics. These days it’s much easier as the children can watch UK TV, read books in english and even get magazines but you do need to make a point of developing their english if you want them to be truly bilingual.

One other thing to watch if you’re moving here with kids is that once they hit 16 they won’t get any education unless they’re either fluent (and “able to get by” doesn’t count) or you move to an area with a relatively large expat population. What happens in areas like this is that at 16 they are sent to CIPPA which is a France-wide organisation with the objective of getting kids prepared to go into the lycée (ie age 17-18 school). Now, that’s fine if you’re in an area where the main reason that kids aren’t able to go into the lycée is that they don’t speak French because they’ll teach them French. However, in our area CIPPA is almost exclusively aimed at getting children from French speaking countries with low education standards up to the required standard and they don’t teach French: in fact in our area it appear to be impossible to get into a school after age 16 unless you speak fluent French and there is nowhere for such kids to actually learn French either. Funnily enough, everyone assumes that there is “some place” that will teach your child French at age 16 but having spent almost three years being passed from one such organisation to another around here, I think I can safely say that there isn’t such a place.

Actually, we started off pretty sure that there was no problem getting kids into school regardless of their age. You never see any problems like that on the “moving to France” TV programmes for sure but I guess that arriving at enrollment with a TV crew in tow helps remove any problems that there might be. However, in “real life”, when you start off at a school their first reaction is to send you off to the CIO to have your educational level tested. Fair enough, but CIO can’t actually test a child that doesn’t speak French so they send you on to another outfit (can’t remember the initials). The other guys just send you straight to CIPPA who, as noted above, are worse than useless in this area if you don’t speak French. CIPPA in turn immediately send you back to have tests of your ability done which, of course, the CIO can’t do if you don’t speak French but, eventually, CIPPA do accept you. Not that there’s much point as we found that they just brand non-French speakers as being lazy and lacking in enthousiasm when they can’t answer question papers in French and hand back a blank answer sheet at the end of the day. So, if you’re unlucky enough to be directed to CIPPA in an area with few non-French living there, you may as well give up any hope of your child receiving an education in France.

Arnold