Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Immigration’ Category

In France, it’s called “le quatorze juillet” but everywhere else it’s definitely Bastille Day on July the 14th.

This is the biggest celebration in France and, whilst it’s marked by processions everywhere in France, Paris is definitely the best place to see it.

The centre of Paris becomes a huge pedestrian zone over the course of the morning up until the parade is finished. The metro system usually isn’t fully operational either and the stations close to the route are closed in the run-up to the start of the parade around 10am. After the various roadblocks are removed, the traffic is much worse than normal (hard as that may be to believe if you’ve experienced the normal Paris traffic!). Therefore, to see the parade you’ll need to be staying somewhere within walking distance of the centre; it’s not too late to book a hotel and there’s also the option of one of the network of apartments, many of which are quite central (we stayed in the Citadine at Les Halles).

Unless you’re up very early, you’ll probably get a better view of the parade in one of the side streets rather than attempting to force your way through the massive crowds along the main parade going down the Champs-Elysee. You’ll miss seeing the president if you do this but realistically you’ve little chance to do that anyway as the best spots are taken up very early in the day. If you’re really set on seeing the president, the thing to do is to walk to the Elysee Palace just after the parade where you’ll see a continual stream of dignatories heading in for lunch.

The evening sees the fireworks show based around the Eiffel Tower. The crowds here are massive but that doesn’t matter as by far the best way to get to the perfect spot is on one of the evening dinner cruises down the Seine. If you choose the second sitting, the boat arrives at the perfect spot just as the fireworks are starting. Although the prices obviously aren’t cheap, they are far from the astronomical level that you might expect on such a day and sailing down the Seine on the evening of Bastille Day is by far the most civilised way to end the day.

What about the Bastille itself? Well, the prison was demolished in 1789 by the revolutionary government and today Place de la Bastille is a massive roundabout.

If you are intending to buy a property in France at some point, it’s pretty much essential to open a French bank account before you get to the point of purchase. 

For non-residents, the internet banking companies are not an option. Indeed, they are, on the whole, not an option unless you have been resident in France for a year or two as they ask for proof of French income. An exception to this is Ing although that’s purely a savings account and also requires you to already have a French account.

If you bank with HSBC, the easiest option for you is to open an account with HSBC in France. Those with Premier accounts can ask their relationship manager to do this but otherwise it’s best just to pop into an HSBC branch whilst you are in France (they’re not currently set up to open non-resident accounts outside the Premier arrangement). Although with Premier accounts in two countries you get free transfers between them, HSBC France is one of the highest charging banks in France so this may not be the best option for you.

Before starting the opening process, you should have a look at the French banking practices section of our Living in France guide.

Both Barclays and LloydsTSB offer a French service. However, their branches are clustered around Paris and the Cote d’Azur and not particularly cheap.

A number of French banks offer English speaking services and, on the whole, these are much cheaper than those on offer from the British banks (the American banks in France only cater for high net-worth individuals and not suitable for most people).

Of these, the most popular is Britline which is a English speaking phone & internet banking branch of Credit Agricole based in Normandy. The service from them is excellent but the services of most other branches of Credit Agricole is between dire and truly dreadful; you can however use the Britline across France so usually don’t need to bother with the local branches. Credit Agricole is a regional bank so, unless you live in Normandy, your local Credit Agricole is a different bank from Britline which limits the facilities available in branches if you’re using Britline as your bank but in practice this merely means that you can’t use the automated deposit machines.

More generally useable is Banque Populaire which has a number of English speaking branches in various regions around France although the most targetted at the English speaking community is that in the Cote d’Azur. This is also a regional bank so you can expect some limitations to the services on offer through your local Banque Populaire. The biggest plus of this is that the service in the branches is, on the whole, much better than Credit Agricole and the charges are significantly less too.

The two national banks,  BNP Paribas and Societé Générale, also have a number of English speaking branches but they don’t promote these actively. An account opened with any of these can be used anywhere in France with the same level of services as they are not regional banks. The other plus point is that they are much larger banks and therefore offer a much wider range of services.

To open accounts in any of the above, use the contact details here and they’ll send you the necessary forms (you can’t open any non-resident accounts online in France). In terms of documentation, all that is normally required is a photocopy of your passport and an original electricity bill. If you are opening the account some time in advance of needing to use it, don’t bother getting a debit card as these cost from EUR 20 to EUR 200 per year. It’s quite easy to stick to using cheques in France as everyone takes them with proof of ID (passport or driving license). Finally, don’t be caught out by inactivity fees which are around EUR 50 per year if you don’t use the account.

If you are moving to France, do not wait until you are in France before you try opening an account here as you won’t be able to provide the proof of address required for several months. If the account is opened before you move, you can simply change the address which in turn will provide you the required proof of French address required to get a French mobile phone. Opening an account whilst you are living in France is, for the most part, a nightmare best avoided involving making appointments with your conseilleur and getting signed up for expensive and useless additional services which are next to impossible to cancel afterwards.

Before opening your account, you should read the French banking practices section of our Living in France guide.

This is part of our series on international banking which covers how to open and use accounts in various jurisdictions around the world including America, Switzerland and various offshore banking centers such as the Channel Islands, Isle of Mann and Bermuda.

It’s time for the fields to be sprayed locally with fungicide and, as usual, we’ve all coughing and have sore throats even though we’re quite a bit away from where the spraying is being done at the moment.

Naturally, the concentration of the spray is a good deal higher around those doing the spraying but, of course, they’re wearing masks, aren’t they? Well, since it is France, no, they aren’t wearing any masks or other protective gear. This photo shows that there’s a mild breeze blowing which is great when the guy is driving the direction in this photo. I have a photo of him driving in the other direction but you can’t see the tractor in it as it’s totally enshrouded in the cloud from the spray.

Incidently,  in case you were wonder, yes, the packaging that the spray comes in is marked with untold numbers of warnings about the necessity of wearing protective gear when using it. Not that you really need to be told that working in a cloud of fungicide is not a good idea.

This total disregard for health & safety is typical for the area. Granted, the guy doing the spraying is making his own decision to ignore the warnings as it’s his field but even in the supermarkets you constantly come across wet and slippy floors that are ignored by the staff. In the UK, they have 2 minutes to clear any spillage or they’re legally liable, here it seems like hours are fine (and, yes, we have been in a supermarket a few hours where a spillage we saw on the way in was still there as we went out).

You might think that medical treatment in France would be pretty much the same as it is elsewhere in the world once you get to the point of visiting the doctor, but it isn’t.

DIY is one of the most popular activities in France if the constant flow of traffic into the DIY (bricolage) shops is anything to go by.

One reason for this is that it’s next to impossible to get anyone to do odd-jobs here so many more people are forced down the DIY route than would otherwise be the case. The range of items for sale is much larger than that in the equivalent places in the UK. Electical equipment runs right up to professional gear in the larger stores and you can buy everything required to build a house from scratch which is also a fairly popular activity. I well remember one old couple wheeling out everything that they needed to floor a room in their house from the floorboards to the tools required.

The popularity of the activity is most noticeable just prior to public holidays when it’s best to avoid these places unless you’ve a considerable amount of time to spare as the queues are just unbelieveable.

Naturally, whilst it might be a popular activity, that doesn’t mean that the work is necessarily done terribly well. Not that the workmanship of the professionals is always better of course as you can see from the not quite perfect sign from this DIY store.