You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 13, 2023.
My posts might be sporadic in the coming days. I hope to post every day, but I am heading into an onerous Spring clean which will involve a lot of time.
Part of my time in Easter Week 2023 has been devoted to clearing my backlog of magazines which began during lockdown. My hope at the time was to get on top of everything beginning in March 2020, but with more news coming out about coronavirus every day, followed by an onslaught of British politics and the Queen’s death, the past three years have put me behind in my reading.
I began by reading 18 months’ worth of Marianne magazines in two days. Marianne is a reputable publication, albeit a bit of a cult classic, among French newsweeklies. I began subscribing to it shortly after it first appeared in 1997.
As it is left-of-centre, I do not agree with everything it says, but, unlike other French publications, it offers articles and perspectives one cannot get elsewhere.
I did not have time to date and page every discovery about the similarities between France and the UK.
Suffice it to say that Brexit has nothing to do with the UK’s woes, whatever they are. France — a nation firmly rooted in the EU — has the same problems.
Healthcare
France has the same healthcare shortages that the UK does. Doctors have retired over the past 30-40 years, leaving a lower number of younger physicians to pick up the workload. More foreign doctors from Africa are being recruited; there is no other alternative.
Physicians and nurses are suffering from increasing mental health problems, just like their British counterparts.
Social care for the elderly is also a problem. Some regions, such as the north of France, with its high number of elderly, are doing well. Others have yet to find a way to co-ordinate with hospitals and other health-oriented organisations on how to find that balance for more demand with a low number of available staff.
Inflation
Yes, everything costs more in France, just as it does in the UK. Families are having to scrimp and save in ways they never anticipated.
Fuel, both for transport and home use, is increasingly expensive. The same goes for electricity.
First-time home buyers are finding it difficult to get on the housing ladder, which is also true in Britain. To say that the French want to rent all their lives, as the left-wing UK politicians say, is wide of the mark. Most new French housing builds are not available to first-time buyers because they simply cannot afford it.
Consequently, the French have to put off starting a family, just as in the UK.
Furthermore, bakeries and restaurants have had to close because of the high cost of fuel and electricity.
Food security
Food costs are sky high. Tomatoes and cucumbers are also in short supply as I write.
Food security is an issue as is the quality of food production. Demand for meat, especially beef, outstrips supply, hence imported meat has become the mainstay in supermarkets as well as in schools and social care institutions.
The EU has also weakened food standards. Allegedly, in a bow to Germany, the EU has ruled that packaging labels can now say ‘farm-grown’ and ‘field-reared’ when no inspection of the kind takes place to ensure that such claims are met.
Incidentally, some generations-old wine producers in Bordeaux cannot afford to keep going, either. They can no longer afford it.
Much of the farm labour has to come from countries other than France, which even for them as an EU country is not always easy to arrange with regard to seasonal visas. Ergo, Britain is not unique — and Brexit is not the problem.
Immigration and employment
France is having problems deporting certain persons who arrive without their papers. In principle, they can deport someone within 90 days. In reality, it does not work to plan and there is a backlog forming. People lose their papers and it is difficult for the immigration authorities to determine who has a right to stay and who must leave. Untruths and difficult stories, including mental health problems, emerge which require further investigation.
Some who have been granted asylum go on to commit crimes. In the latter part of 2022, three men in Angers, which used to be a quiet city (Maine-et-Loire), were knifed to death by a Sudanese man who was granted asylum. It turns out he has severe mental health problems. The Frenchmen were defending two women whom the Sudanese was threatening with violence. There have been other serious criminal incidents involving those granted asylum.
The mental health problem among asylum seekers is an issue, one which authorities are continuing to investigate.
Mental health in general
Since lockdown in 2020, the mental health of French men and women has become an issue, especially among adolescents and young adults.
Performance at work and in schools as well as universities has deteriorated.
Education
Lockdown has also produced its problems among students in the secondary and tertiary education sectors. Teachers and professors have had to ‘curve’ grades, because the standards have decreased considerably.
Students have difficulties writing essays, partly because they can no longer write in longhand and also because they cannot put reasoned thoughts to paper. Fewer are entering the Bac with a Philosophy examination, formerly a mainstay of French secondary education.
Sexual assault
The French have also been shocked by reports of serious habitual sexual assault in families over the past few years.
Most of these involve a pater familias who skilfully drugs his wife and/or daughter for gang rape by himself and his friends.
That, admittedly, is not something rampant in the UK, although we have our own problems of another nature with regard to crimes of this type.
Family highly regarded, work less so
Young adults still give family and friends high priority in their lives — 91% and 90%, respectively.
The value of work ranks lower down the scale, in the 80-percentile range, with some young French employees saying they do enough to get by, and that’s all their time is worth. They simply are not being paid enough.
That is certainly similar to what is happening in the UK, with many young people wondering what the point of work is if the pay is so low. It is hard to disagree with that, as a number of cynical British employers are purposely lowering salaries so that they do not have to pay much. They figure that someone in a low-paid position can get Universal Credit as a top-up to their salary.
France is ‘Eurosceptic’
And, finally, a few Marianne articles said that France was the most Eurosceptic of the EU nations.
The French still do not trust the Germans. They also wonder why the EU is working against the individual nations in attempting to create a supranational structure, ignoring national cultures and borders.
Conclusion
It is unlikely that France is an outlier in the EU.
Having read Marianne‘s articles, from late 2021 to the present, I am convinced that Brexit was the right thing to do. Vox populi, vox Dei.
Brexit is more of a process rather than an event. We shall prevail, of that I am certain — just not tomorrow or next year.
Churchmouse Campanologist 