Posted on 04/05/2006 6:31:44 PM PDT by blam
Find a job and a future in Britain, French told
By Colin Randall in Paris
(Filed: 06/04/2006)
As protesters throughout France continue their revolt against job law reform, the French author of a new guide to working in Britain says his country is in dire need of "our own Maggie Thatcher".
Vladimir Cordier, 30, an economics graduate, abandoned his native Normandy eight years ago for London after refusing to settle for what he saw as a hopeless future in France.
After finding work in a call centre, he changed jobs several times and now earns between £40,000 and £50,000 a year as a project manager with a firm providing technological services to lawyers.
His self-published book, Enfin un Boulot! (At last a job), advises young compatriots how to join the flood of French who have turned their backs on a stifling employment market at home in favour of "le modèle Anglo-Saxon".
"No French government wants to be honest with the people," Mr Cordier said. "But times are hard and what we need is something like our own Maggie Thatcher, if maybe not so tough.
"We cannot go on believing we can afford the social system we have, keeping people in universities until they leave with skills that are useless to the world outside."
Mr Cordier, from Rouen, decided to leave France after hearing a professor tell students to continue studying as long as possible because "there is no work for you".
"I was gobsmacked," he said. "After all that studying, he thought the best I could hope for was to end up as a cashier at the hypermarket, doing a job for which you needed no more than the GCSE equivalent."
His advice to French people following his example is to save enough to cover basic needs while looking for work and to avoid menial jobs in sandwich bars and pubs.
"It is better than nothing but a call centre job looks a lot better on the CV," he said. "I am living proof that it can be done because I arrived with very little and have done well.
"But I would not be considered qualified in France to do what I do in London. The best I could have hoped for would have been a little bank job earning half as much."
He said he was fed up with hearing the French moan about British "invaders" forcing up house prices. He said: "There are 174,000 Britons who live permanently in France - but 300,000 French people who have moved to the United Kingdom."
Mr Cordier's Parisian girlfriend, Anne-Sophie Cavil, 31, overcame initial reluctance to join him in London and works as a marketing manager in telecommunications.
"It can be difficult to make English friends because the way we think is so different," he said. "Health and public transport systems are not as good but we love our life here: the open-mindedness that allows everyone from the boss to the cleaner to have a drink together after work."
He said the law that has provoked weeks of unrest in France could have been useful in fighting unemployment but had been presented badly.
I want to stock vending machines in Great Britain.
People like that could save their home country from the brink.
This headline reminds me of something a former West Virginia governor told residents who were complaining about unemployment: "Hit the Hillbilly Highway down to Carolina." He was referring to I-77, and a lot of them did just that.
A perfect example of a guy who SHOULD understand the problem, but still, despite hating the system they have in France, doesn't get it.
Re your logic that the best and brightest should leave their countries if conditions don't improve: I suggest two points, 1) you fail to take into account these people's fondness for their homeland; and 2) the English are, and have been, inundated with foreigners looking to take advantage of their successful business climate. They've had to put up with a great deal of enforced change to their lifestyles due to the influx of jobseekers; as an anglophile, I sympathize and think that people should stay out of Britain unless they truly want to be there. After all, it's a small island, not a massive country like America.
LOL, you forgot your sarcasm tag.
But this discussion isn't about foreigners smuggling themselves; it's about the French looking at Britain as a way to deal with their unemployment woes. Not a good idea, for the best-and-brightest nor anyone else.
If it's the best option for them, it's a good idea.
For them individually, possibly. You know, they might bitterly regret leaving La Belle France for the damp and drizzle of ingleterre.
Individually...you mean people ought to be allowed to live where they want to live, work where they want to work, etc? Imagine that.
No, I require you to take your educated rants somewhere else.
Sarcasm tag!
Americans are not allowed to work in either France nor Britain, unless they have an almost-impossible-to-get work permit. It has to be a job that no English (or French) person could reasonably do. And this has been in effect since the early 70s. Yes, I think people should be able to work where they want and live where they want. They can't.
"...it all began while serving in a NATO facility, observing Frenchmen, and after having traveled in France, and becoming acquainted with actual citizens of France, over twenty years ago."
This sounds very interesting. I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate? Your last paragraph is intriguing. Can you tell me how the French arrived at the mess they're in now?
You DO enjoy the last word, n'cest pas?
Your requirements will not be met.
As an alternative, my I suggest the delivery of a MOAB?
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