Why we're moving back to the US (from Paris) (UK, England, stereotype)

[Minato ku]

Originally Posted by cunparis

This all sounded good except for the Cergy part. As my wife just said "C'est la zone". Not sure how to translate that other than Cergy is considered a bad area with high crime. It's also very far from Paris.

Umh no, Cergy is socially diverse, there is some rough parts but there is also very decent middle class sprawl houses area. (nice for big familly)

92 is also diverse, it depend where you live... The nothern 92 (Genevilliers, Villeneuve-la-Garenne...) is as bad as the 93.
I live in Montrouge in the southern 92 and I never see a burned cars, the crime rate is so low.

The median income map in Paris region
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8673/medianincomeparisyl4.jpg (broken link)
Simplified povery map of Paris region


[SIZE="1"]Note that in french the comma is the equivalent of the english point.[/SIZE]
1. inner city Paris 75
Inner suburbs
2 Haut de Seine 92
3 Seine Saint Denis 93
4 Val de Marne 94
Outer suburbs
5 Essonne 91
6 Yvelines 78
7 Val-d'Oise 95
8 Seine-et-Marne 77

[cunparis]

Originally Posted by Minato ku

92 is also diverse, it depend where you live... The nothern 92 (Genevilliers, Villeneuve-la-Garenne...) is as bad as the 93.
I live in Montrouge in the southern 92 and I never see a burned cars, the crime rate is so low.

Thanks for sharing the maps, they are very interesting.

I suspect the problem is the HLM although I have no facts to back that up. For those unfamiliar, HLM is government subsidized (low income) housing, not sure what it's called in the US. On our street it's very common to see many houses that would cost 3-5 million USD and the expensive cars parked in front. My friends tease me about it. We live in small apartment on the same street as these mansions.

Then a few minutes walk away towards the center of town are the HLM. So on the map it would appear that our city is very rich, but that doesn't prevent having all the problems associated with low income housing such as the crime, the graffiti everywhere, broken beer & wine bottles, and gangs of kids who hang out in the streets.

I know the idea low income housing is debatable, and that if we put all the HLM in one area and all the rich in another area that it would create more of a divide and the crime rate of the HLM area would be very high. We do find this in what the French call "les cités" which is where most of the riots and car burning occurred.

So I think there is no solution to this issue. Actually most of the ultra-rich move to areas without HLM which are usually areas not served by public transportation.

In summary, all this is a consequence of the fact that the French industries are almost all based in Paris. Everything is centralized. That means working people can't escape Paris. A friend of mine's wife has been trying for a transfer to Bordeaux for years (she's a teacher). She keeps getting denied. It seems that all the teachers want to transfer out of Paris and she's not priority.

Contrast this to the US where companies are dispersed throughout the US. Imagine what it'd be like if all the major US companies were all in New York! Yet that is exactly what's going on in Paris.

[Minato ku]

The centralisation is the problem of France and UK.

USA has several cities over 4~5 million inhabitants and big HQ are mostly in these big cities.
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Washington DC
Boston
San Franscico
Dallas
Philadelphia
Houston
Detroit
Seattle

That right HQ tend to rest in the city where the compagny was created, but their biggest office are in big city.

If we look France or UK
There is only Paris and London.

[pigeonhole]

The cultural opportunities alone are worth considering. I mean, one day one of their daughters had a question about Monet. So they hopped in the car and spent the following Saturday at Giverny. Weekends in the Alps, quick trips to London, short vacations on the Breton coast, a TGV run to the Mediterranean. Do you really want to give all that up for...Raleigh?? JMT

You friend sure has a lot of dough making all this trips and visits with his huge family,
but it's not the case of the average Frenchman.
I , for one, would enjoy discovering North Virginia and not be stuck in this cold, noisy, crowded inhuman metropolis so coveted by wealthy Americans....
And as someone said, "when I hear the word Culture, I grasp my revolver"....

[JMT]

Originally Posted by pigeonhole

The cultural opportunities alone are worth considering. I mean, one day one of their daughters had a question about Monet. So they hopped in the car and spent the following Saturday at Giverny. Weekends in the Alps, quick trips to London, short vacations on the Breton coast, a TGV run to the Mediterranean. Do you really want to give all that up for...Raleigh?? JMT

You friend sure has a lot of dough making all this trips and visits with his huge family,
but it's not the case of the average Frenchman.
I , for one, would enjoy discovering North Virginia and not be stuck in this cold, noisy, crowded inhuman metropolis so coveted by wealthy Americans....
And as someone said, "when I hear the word Culture, I grasp my revolver"....

Not really. As was mentioned earlier, the French government is very generous in its monthly allocations familiales. Plus my friend lives in a very modest pavillon which I can assure you is only a fraction as expensive as the OP claims that individual homes cost in l'Ile de France. Yes, my friend probably does make a decent salary, but he also works very hard and deserves every centime. And it's not like the family goes on these lavish weekend trips every month. They do not live an extravagant lifestyle.

Their children are not "crushed" by the burden of attending French schools. Au contraire, even their teenagers prefer their French education to the paltry education they received in the US. If their egos need stroking, they get that at home.

And to the OP: if your wife thinks Cergy is "la zone" then yeah she probably won't be happy anywhere in the Paris region. I would hardly consider Cergy to be a bad area. It's got its HLMs, of course, but it's also got tons of beautiful upper middle class neighborhoods, tree-lined streets and pavillons with private gardens. There's even a Toys R Us.

[cunparis]

I didn't say all homes cost 2 million USD. I said that the equivalent of a $200k home in Cary would cost 2 million in France. I consider Cary a "nice" area to live in and a "nice" area in Paris is really expensive.

I just looked at home prices in Cergy and I'm surprised that a small home (smaller and older than the 200k home in Cary) is around 350k euros which would be about $500k USD. That is affordable assuming one spends their life savings on the house. The only question that remains is if Cergy is safe, is it really "la zone" or not. I'll have to ask some of my coworkers. Where I live, which is much closer to Paris, the $500k would be over a million.

I think a lot of this is "the grass is always greener" etc. I think Paris is great for older teenagers and young adults. Once kids stop clubbing and settle down to start a family, they usually want to get out of Ile de France.

I give as an example what happened to use yesterday. We tried to get out of the garage but there was a big truck badly parked in the street which prevented us from getting out of the garage. So I called the police as usual. The driver came to load up some stuff while I was calling the police and my wife explained that we can't get out and that he needs to move it. So what does he do? He goes back into his apartment! So for 15 minutes we sit there waiting. He comes back and I tell him we're waiting 15 minutes for him. He doesn't even care. Luckily the police come and the guy jumps in the truck but it's too late. They had him move it out of the way for us, and when we left they were in the process of giving him a ticket because he didn't have all his papers for the truck.

This would probably sound like I'm nitpicking but this type of thing happens all the time. Why? Because the houses/buildings are on top of each other (our neighbhor's house is 2cm from the street), the street is 1 lane so that they can park cars in the other lane. Since parking is very scarce people usually park illegally, blocking other people's garage or the entrance to the school, etc.

So there are two problems in this story:

1 - there is no space here
2 - the average resident of the Paris area doesn't give a crap about anyone else

I think we could cope with the first if it were not for the second. Another example of the second, taken from a different context: At least once a week and often twice a week, there is dog poop within 2 feet of our front door.

It's inconsiderate enough to let a dog poop anywhere where people are walking in the street (no room on our street for a sidewalk), but to let a dog poop IMMEDIATELY in front of the front door?

Expanding on this, there are so repeat offenders. One guy we said something to him once and he just said something stupid like "the cats poop there anyways". He also parked his car illegally in front of our building so we called the police and he got a ticket. Then he parked illegally in front of our house again and we called again. This time the police called him and he had to come home from work to move the car. He wasn't happy about it but at least he hasn't parked in front of our house again. As for the dog poop, I'm unable to identify if it's from his dog or not.

[somebodymiami]

speaking of crime in paris.........



http://moshcalifar.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/ferentari.jpg (broken link)http://www.andreiac.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/s-tiganca.jpg (broken link)http://www.adevarul.ro/assets/articles/2007/10/10092/thumb_2294-129384-_3colaustruluiah.jpg (broken link)

[moxiecat]

Originally Posted by cunparis

What is the definition of "works"?

By works if we mean the average French high school graduate is smarter than the average US graduate, then I agree. They are particularly more knowledgeable in world affairs, politics, philosophy and literature.

On the other hand, French students typically live with their parents until they're 25-27. They graduate from college and get their first job.

Thus when graduating the French are more intelligent but still a bit naïf in many other ways. The French system breaks them down and makes them fall into a mold. Many leave work and take a job they'll have for the rest of their lives. Many will get yearly raises that are below the rate of inflation, meaning they're actually making less and less each year. And the weird thing is, although they complain about, most are submissive to this system.

I'm trying to find an explanation for it, but I can say for sure that ambition is not in the French culture. Even worse, it's looked down upon. It's the total opposite of the US.

I think in the US kids learn as much out of school as they do in. I'm talking about teamwork that is learned from sports, band, etc. Teamwork in France isn't a natural concept, there is fierce competition at school that continues into the workplace. They have a saying "Chaqu'un pour soi et dieu pour tous" which means "Everyone for themselves and God for everyone". I can't tell you how many times I've heard this! So many that I start to believe it myself unfortunately.

US kids learn responsability, negotiating, teamwork, etc. when they work part time jobs. The importance of this is often underestimated.

In short, yes I agree the French have superior intellect. But I think there are drawbacks to the system as well and in the end it's not so advantageous.

Yesterday I gave a presentation at work about new technologies that most weren't aware of (I did a show of hands before I started). After I had finished I was answering questions as most of them were heading for the door. It was 6pm. Only 3 of them stayed afterwards to continue the discussion with me. One of those 3 made this remark and he thought it was very telling (he is French too).

In summary, I prefer the US school system even if the kids are a little less intelligent. I think the values the US kids learn are more important. For exapmle I graduated from an average public university certainly not the best. But I was very ambitious and I put in a lot of extra effort to improve my skills, get more salary when I changed jobs, etc. My French coworkers here make fun of me saying I have a "salaire de ministre" (not sure how to translate literally but a ministre is a government official who is very highly paid). Yet at the same time they are capable of what I did which was not much more than a lot of hard work, dedication, and ambition. They are capable of it but they prefer to complain about their salary instead.

So I'm convinced the US system is better (but by no means perfect) and we plan to move to the US for our kids.

Finally I'll wrap this up in saying that the French kids do nothing but school and homework. All the time. There is no time for sports & other activities. For me it's a very sad tradeoff. A childhood for more academic knowledge. Knowledge that for the most part will go unused and forgotten.

The knoweldge can be gained at any time in life, but their childhood is lost forever.

In my 5 years of experience teaching French expats at banks and French college students studying business in NY, there is a big gap with regard to their sense of personal ambition and ours. It is not in their culture to be driven and to succeed by making lots of money the way Americans are when they arrive in a large city like NY. We win hands down over them because we like to measure our success. However, they are groomed more so to do fewer things but really well - in fact, extremely well and with an inimitable style. Although I admire them for their depth of knowledge of history and the world, their superiority abilities in math and sciences, as well as their more laid back and less stressful approach to life, they are overall underequipped/under-trained in fundamental areas where Americans do well in life ie: work, business. and reaching progressive levels of success in life.

We focus heavily on developing extracurricular talents (sports, music, internships) in our children to build multi-faceted disciplines which help increase stamina and tolerance for a large variety of situations. It's a form of early training for what we will be juggling later on in our adult lives.

American sports in childhood (both boys and girls) foster early exposure to competition, teamwork, discipline, leadership, strategic planning, and are the basis of our future interactions in college and business. Women in France are completely devoid of this while we have laws in the US that open doors and create sporting opportunities for girls/women.

Physically, they can't compete against Americans in sports (their stamina levels are well short of the average American raised on the rigors of school -age sports and other team activities). Besides they smoke too much!

So you are right about the unparalleled quality and high standards of the French education system and because it is free for its citizens their system of admissions is by test scores only. The downfall there is that it doesn't take into account the person as a whole. However, there is a lot to be said about great uniformity in their education because their system is centralized and they are "cut from the same cloth". In the US, school systems (and quality) vary greatly from state to state and city to city, but we place a high value on differences and variation among students and their particular talents. US college admissions is based on test scores, academic record, extracurricular talents, community service, essay, interview, a multitude of criteria to gauge your eligibility so we have to be as multi-disciplined as possible.

If only our math and science curriculum were as top-notch as the French system's we could be in the top 20 with other nations but we're not. And if only the French school schedule was not so spread out during the week with all these "breaks", they might actually have time to take on other activities.

The French generally have a more defined path of their lives but don't go much outside of it like Americans do. For example when they get a job, it's often a job for life whereas here in the US it's normal to job-scotch and even switch careers several times if need be. But all the French have to do is perform their job and not do more than they have to since there is no incentive, no personal gain. In the US, we have so many ways of defining and reinventing ourselves that keep us motivated. Unfortunately, the French have more limitations in their system which keep them from being too adventurous, entrepreneurial, productive, ambitious.

[cunparis]

Moxiecat,

Thank you for sharing your experience here. I really enjoyed reading your point of view because it explains a lot of the reasons why the French are as they are.

This particular sentence is very interesting:

Originally Posted by moxiecat

But all the French have to do is perform their job and not do more than they have to since there is no incentive, no personal gain.

I think this sums up a huge problem in France. And to expand on your idea here, not only do the French not have incentives to do more, they have complete job protection to do LESS! It's not in the French culture to fire someone and the French labor laws make it very difficult. Often departures are negotiated and involved at least a year of salary usually more.

The result is a lot of French employees (my opinion is the vast majority) simply does the least possible. The French often says phrases like "it's not my job to do that" when discussing their work. Basically you'll have one person stay until midnight for a deadline while his/her coworkers will leave at 6pm because "it's not their job". The idea of teamwork is pretty rare.

At extreme levels, some employees do either little or no work at all, or even worse they do bad work. So how do the French deal with it? Sometimes they promote them. The other way is what they call "la placard" which translates to "the closet". Basically they put the person in a dead-end job and wait for the person to leave the company. Of course if the person is really a bad worker then they can't get a job elsewhere so they end up staying in "la placard" for several years, sometimes for life.

A counter-strategy is for the employee to go on "arret maladie" (medical leave). They complain of stress, depression, pressure to resign etc. and a doctor will give them a medical leave. If the doctor refuses then they just find another doctor who will. This is in the French culture to fight against the company so it's not hard to get one, just find a very socialist/communist doctor. This medical leave can go on for months if not even a year. And a company can't fire someone on medical leave. So you can imagine how the situation gets worse and worse.

In just about every job I've had at big companies I've seen this happen. Situations where a worker would be dismissed at any US company. So for the few French who are really motivated and want to move ahead, it's a big obstacle.

The end result is that France has a lot of underachievers. It's weird to think that with a very difficult and rigorous education system that the majority of the French end up under-performers and under-achievers. Once they get their job they're set for life.

One more point to add-on, is that every once in a while one of these "for life" jobs ends due to the company laying off everyone (out of business, merger, severe econimic problems, etc.). This is a catastrophy! Someone I know is going through it now. When someone in their late 30's or later is unemployed, it's very difficult to get a new job. This is due partly to the high unemployment (more job seekers than jobs), to the fact that most French are under-achievers so companies perfer to hire someone younger right out of school, to the fact that it's hard to fire someone so companies do not take any risk whatsoever (one minor "concern" and you're eliminated), and due to a more complicated issue - cost of living and doing business.

The cost of living and doing business is increasing so much that companies are in a total cost-cutting mode. (I think this is true globally and not just in France but in Paris the costs are even higher than most major cities). So companies are making due with less educated workers. 2 year degrees are replacing 4 year degrees in companies for example.

I will also point out that currently there are record numbers of new college graduates who can't find jobs. Which makes it even more difficult for 30 somethings to find work. It's a downward spiral and with the looming economic recession it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[Minato ku]

Originally Posted by somebodymiami

speaking of crime in paris.........

Actually this is Bucharest in Romania
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