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The prospect of living in France appeals to many, but moving to a foreign country has its drawbacks. One content creator who braved the move has outlined what these are.
While the idea of what it is like to live across the channel is often romanticised, Regan Shorter took to YouTube to share why, for her, it was not what she’d expected.
“I came to France in the fall of 2018 to study abroad,” she said in a YouTube clip. “Today I want to talk to you about the things I hate the most about France.”
One aspect of the culture that foreigners are quick to pick up on is the attitude of the French towards personal space.
Regan shared several challenges she faced after moving to France as a student
REGAN SHORTER / YOUTUBE
“My number one pet peeve about living in France is the French’s lack of awareness for personal space,” she said.
“Take for example going to the grocery store, people spin their carts everywhere, they’ll hit you with their cart. Don’t go to the grocery store on a busy Saturday, [it’s] the most annoying thing ever.”
The second difficulty mentioned in the video is French bureaucracy, which is often described as a nuisance among the expat community.
“If you know anyone who has lived here or have read the blog of someone who lives here [you’ll know] this is no surprise. It took me four months to get the right to work [even though] I came over here on a working visa.”
She added: “You’re not expected to get something done in one trip, you’re expected to go back multiple times and to make multiple trips. Something can’t be solved in one go.”
The bureaucratic inconveniences of France are made even more difficult by the fact that nothing in the country is open on Sundays, added Regan.
“All the banks and all the stores close for two hours at lunch,” she said. “It makes it impossible to get anything done between when everything is open during standard working hours. I do not know how anyone gets anything done here.
Moving on to the language barrier, the expat said life can be a struggle for those with no command of the local language.
“The next thing that I want to talk about is the language barrier. Being in France, there is obviously a language barrier.
“I can speak workable French but when it comes to official situations and when it comes to researching information, it becomes really annoying that I’m not really sure if I’m understanding things fully.”
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It comes as another expat recently documented her experience on YouTube, where she admitted that two particular challenges stood out; a lack of personal space and unreliable delivery services.
The American native, who left her job in 2018 to move to the south of France, explained: “It’s been an incredible experience, but there have been some challenges along the way.
“Here in France, with some mail and some of my packages, I don’t get them or I don’t get them quickly.
“There’s the problem number one of things just not being delivered, and then there’s the problem of things being delivered more slowly.”
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