28th November 2008

As part of the global economic crisis, which just seems to go on and on, it is revealed that France's unemployment level has just risen to over 2 million. The unemployment rate in France is calculated on a quarterly basis and came to 7.2 percent of the workforce in the second quarter, according to the national statistics institute INSEE. But the government and analysts warned a recession in Europe's biggest economy would soon be putting even more people out of work.
But the internet is a marvellous tool. It allows someone like me, living in the isolated countryside of S.W. France, to supplement my meagre(!) pension by registering for a site called PeopleperHour.com. When I retired here, I thought I was finished with work for ever and ever. Yet, this site provides quite a stimulus for a writer like me. It requires me to bid for any project that appeals to me and to quote either a fixed-fee or a per hour rate. So far, I have bid for 7 projects, including a book reviewer, blog-writer (!), greetings-card verse compiler and many more....... As this is all very new for me, I'll report soon on how successful or not I've been.
A couple of decades ago, when I was working as an administrator at a major redbrick university in the UK, I hated having to learn how to use, first, a BBC wordprocessor, then an AppleMac, swiftly followed by the advent of the PC. (Back then I wanted to stay in the comfort zone of my beloved IBM golfball typewriter. How times change!) But now I'm really grateful that I was forced to learn, because I now can't do without it. It really provides that essential link with our current lives and the world outside.
C'est merveilleuse!

16th October 2008

So, unemployment in Britain has reached catastrophic proportions yet again. I remember just after Mrs Thatcher took power when unemployment passed three million for the first time since the 1930s depression. One in eight people was out of work. I'm also old enough to remember the '70s Winter of Discontent when electricity supplies were rationed in the UK and binmen and even some gravediggers downed tools. And here we are again. But people can be surprisingly resilient. Some, particularly those with a latent artistic talent have moved to France to try, for the first time, something new. But like everything else, it's not easy. There are two English ladies who work as artists in the Lot, not far from here near Cahors. One works as an interior illustrator and portrait artist and the other has won awards with the Royal Society of Oil Painters and is a member of the Societe des Pastellistes de France. This entitles you to run classes to supplement your income and to hang your work up on public display. Like most painters here, they came to this area to get the space to paint, finding France an inspirational place for colour. (They're a sentimental pair, always full of emulsion, but we'll gloss over that!)But the registration process has really tightened up over the past few years. English-speaking artists established professionally and resident in France are self-employed workers unless they have a binding contract of employment. They must register at the Chambre de Metiers of the departement where they live and apply for a SIREN reg. no. If in difficulty with all the administration, the Franco-British Chamber of Commerce can help. The best thing of all to do, though, as some of our friends here have discovered, is to simply come to France when you've retired. Then, you can simply enjoy your artistic talent, whether it be painting, writing or roller-skating(!), without all those hassles. (As Him indoors would say: no-one asked Van Gogh for anything, because he said he'd got one 'ere!). Enjoy your life, whatever your talent. C'est la joie de vivre.

30th August 2008

In our mailbox this morning was the September edition of the English-language newspaper The Connexion. We particularly like it because it reports on French news, but in English. The French themselves aren't great newspaper readers, and only one household in four actually buys a newspaper. The two best-known are Le Monde and Le Figaro, the so-called tabloid press being virtually non-existent in France. Of course, we can read UK newspapers via the internet, but these are naturally UK-biased and we need to keep in touch with what's going on near to where we now live. Although my spoken and written French has improved markedly in the 3 years we have lived here, it still helps a lot to read The Connexion because it focuses on the issues affecting English people living in France and the many problems that involves! In this month's edition I read that President Sarkozy has made sure that all workers in France, including part-timers, will not earn less whilst employed than they would if receiving unemployment benefits: something that Gordon Brown would do well to take on board. Mind you, as him indoors often used to say when asked how many people work at his establishment: 'Oh, about half of 'em.'
P.S. Don't miss part 3 of Sex a la francaise - appearing exclusively tomorrow on this site.