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Self-Sufficiency in Style

france (and the french)

Part Two

Where should we look for our house and land in France?

 

 France is the most exotic of the locations usually considered by the Anglophone would-be smallholders.

In part one we looked at some of the differences between France and the English-speaking countries.

Here, we explore the significance especially to the potential self-sufficiency settler.

It is so easy, and yet so misleading, to attribute problems to language and cultural difficulties.

The real worries come from a rather different reason...

... a matter of the Law of the Land.
Napoleon did more than merely conquer half a continent and retreat from Russia. He left behind a legacy of a common legal system.

Whatever the differences between the Frenchman and the Russian, the Italian and the Austrian, they share a similar concept of law, based once on Canon Law, but codified, consolidated and spread by the French.

On the other side of the coin, the English speakers and many that don't actually speak English, have a system codified, consolidated and spread by the English.

It is a big and crucial difference, almost bred into the bones and certainly an influence in every day life.

Law giver extraordinary.

The brain simply seizes up, in total bafflement.

 Since the advent of the European Union, the British and Irish have stumbled into a half understanding of a system so alien that it may well explain the reluctance, especially by the British, to become further embroiled in Europe.

They have great mental difficulty in grasping and coping with a system that seems to defy both logic and freedom.

The continental European struggles to understand these strange Anglophones in exactly the opposite direction.

They can't cope with what seems to them a complicated, illogical and anarchic system based on precedent.
English Law, for that is its basis even in Ireland and the US, depends on precedent, "What did we do last time?" is the question?

The fact that it may take three tons of books and the services of two hundred eminent lawyers to find out, a mere detail.

Continental Law, is not really interested in what happened in the reign of King John. They go straight for the book, and if there is not a law, they make one.

The fact that the result, may often be perverse under either system, is irrelevant.

The legal problems about  footpaths and common rights, that cause so much dissention in England, do not exist in France, however neither do the footpaths or rights unless specially decreed and written.

The point is not that one system is better or worse than the other, merely that they are different.

Not just competing claims but competing systems.

Although not even the warning will be in English.

 It is not just that either.

Although it no longer always seems like it, throughout the English speaking world, there is a presumption that if something is not expressly forbidden, it is allowed.

The presumption elsewhere, and specifically in France, is that a right, unless expressly allowed, is forbidden.
For the retired couple buying a house with a garden, the difference may be academic.

For a self-sufficiency couple, grappling with land and land law, it matters.

For anyone attempting to run a business, it can be catastrophic.

A retired couple will not be shown the door.

Perhaps even if you are selling your own labour to yourself.

 And that is the crux of the problem.

Many people include the running of a business within their definition of "self-sufficiency."

If you are selling anything, including your own labour, you have left  self-sufficiency behind and have moved into running a business.
If you are running a business, you are instantly competing with locals running similar businesses - and they will quite rightly expect you to compete fairly by obeying their laws and regulations.

To start a business at any time is a risk.

To start one without a full knowledge of the local language increases the risk to the point of almost certain failure.

To start one in an alien legal system as a adjunct to self-sufficiency, is, frankly, suicidal.

Even selling a few eggs, might well be a business requiring permission, registration and licences.

Bed, breakfast, renovation and holiday accommodation the same.

And this is the root cause of problems in France - attempts to start businesses under the guise of self-sufficiency.

It is a common enough practice, although difficult enough in all English speaking countries, such attempts cause untold difficulties and much heart-ache for English speakers in France.

France has lots of attractions for the true self-sufficiency buff, providing they are properly cautious.

Having given a heavy-handed warning, we move on to the discussing the pluses and minuses some specific areas in Part Three

Or, you can return to Part One of France (and the French).

"starting a business would be easier"

 even at the Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.

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