15th December 2013

A French lawmaker has spent the last 8 months walking around France listening to the views of ordinary people. Everywhere he went he found people 'without hope', he told listeners on Europe 1 Radio. People reported that France has no more industry, farming is in crisis and city suburbs are terrible. He said he “needed to get a feeling” for the country, and wrote on his personal blog that he was impressed by peoples’ willingness to speak frankly with him. France is changing, he said, and the government has failed to explain what this change means. Worse, he found latent racism everywhere, even in the smallest villages, especially a return of 'anti-Semitic' rhetoric. Have people learned nothing from the past? Let's hope his report to M. Hollande in February will do something, but I'm not confident. My comment to M. Hollande: follow the UK's lead and get the French economy moving again. For British expats, their French house values have dropped alarmingly, whilst English ones have risen - pulling those who wish to return out of the UK property market. So, where to go from here?