Young, dynamic, willing to work long hours? This is the typical French worker — in Britain.
Even though France has one of the world’s shorter working weeks, growing numbers of young French are crossing the Channel to find work in the tougher, but more lucrative British market.
Undaunted by Britain’s longer hours and less secure job market, they are in no mood to heed a call by presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy to return and “make France a great nation where everything will be possible.”
“It is all very well saying that sort of thing, but why should I go back when I can earn much better money and have a good career here,” said Guillaume Noirtin, a 25-year old headhunter who works in London, told Reuters.
“Give us the chance of jobs and good money first.”
Turning his back on France’s 35-hour work week as well as the euro zone’s second highest unemployment rate, Noirtin is one of some 110,000 French nationals registered in the UK.
While that is already the third-biggest French community in the world, the French consulate in London estimates the actual number of French in Britain could be anything up to 300,000.
Youth unemployment is running high in France, with the jobless rate for the under-25s at 21.7 percent, or two and half times the national rate, making low pay or unpaid internships a fact of life for young jobseekers.
That might help explain why the average French expatriate in Britain is aged just under 30, about two decades younger than the average British expatriate in France -- a country renowned for good food, good wine, and the good life.
More opportunity, higher pay
“Sure, I would go back, but you have to give me the work I want and a decent life,” said Bart Levasseur, a 27-year old television studio operator who arrived in London more than two years ago with not much more than a backpack.
“I would be really happy to work for a French film maker in France, but it was so difficult to get the work and so badly paid. I earn two or three times more here than I did in France.”
Attempts to make France’s labor market more flexible, to encourage firms to hire, have run into stiff opposition.
This was most recently the case in 2006, when huge protests forced Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s center-right UMP government to withdraw a contract known as CPE which would have made it easier for firms to hire and fire younger workers.
However, Bernard Cochery, the consul general in London, told Reuters a change of scenery sometimes meant a change of attitude among French workers.
“It was striking to see that young people who perhaps had reservations about the new CPE contract in France could be ready -- in a different context and facing different rules -- to accept more rapid change in their work, longer working hours and more pressure in a permanent evaluation process.”
Both Sarkozy and his Socialist rival Segolene Royal have floated ideas for boosting pay and getting more people back to work but many young expatriates in Britain appeared unconvinced.
“All the politicians are the same. They all come from the same social class, live in another world and don’t see how real French people live,” said Vincent Oliver, a 30-year-old Breton who came to Britain with his girlfriend in September 2005.
Nor is there anything in the election speeches to persuade Romaric Boussin, a market researcher, that change is in the air.
“I don’t know if France will change in three or four years’ time but from what I have seen on the few occasions I have visited home, it doesn’t make me want to go back,” said the 26-year old Parisian who came to Britain 18 months ago.
Differing attitudes
While economic reform may be a hotly debated topic, some of the reasons for young French expatriates wanting to stay put in Britain lie in deep-rooted social attitudes that could prove tough to change during a five-year presidential mandate.
“I am in charge of two people, one of whom is 40, which would just never happen in France,” said Noirtin.
“French people have a different, hierarchical attitude and you won’t be given as many opportunities. In the UK, if you are good enough, you can get on no matter how old you are. Sometimes I work 60 hours a week but you do it because if you work hard, you can progress quickly.”
Still, some expatriates don’t always want to apply Britain’s flexibility on hours and employment conditions back home.
“It is just not the same system and if you start changing that, you would have to change everything,” said Oliver.
Nor is life in Britain a bed of roses for the expatriates.
“The idea of London being an Eldorado where you just have to turn up find work is wrong,” said French consul general Cochery.
“All the positive things that are said ... are true, but there are also people who have less positive experiences because they have difficulties, for example they lack enough English language skills or because the cost of living is high.”
Expatriates living in London agree that while finding a job may seem easier in Britain than in France, they often have about the same amount of money left in their pockets by month-end.
“Here you can have a really good career but then you will have to deal with health care, housing, travel, all of which are expensive,” said Emilie Gagne, a 24 year old who works in a company organizing financial conferences.
“It’s a bit of a sacrifice, but it is a bet I am making -- I am betting on my career and then I can move to another country.”