Pros and Cons of living in France as opposed to the United States?

Question

I was watching Michael Moore's Sicko and was amazed about France. The way that the French take care of their people makes me want to pack my things and move there. But I know that it can't be all good.

Pros and Cons of living in France as opposed to the United States?

Answer 1

Allussions!!

Taxes are so heavy with very low salaries in Europe

Answer 2

You should be aware that the health insurance in France (and the rest of the EU) is NOT free.  You are forced to buy some kind of health insurance and most ppl will buy the government insurance.  You have to pay premiums, deductibles and copayments.  

It is true that you have to be able to speak French.  Though many French ppl have studied English, many are not fluent and even more of them don't feel comfortable speaking English. After all, French is the official language of France.  

France is a nice country to visit and I could understand ppl visiting every few years.  But as an American, it can be strange living in a foreign country.  France is a western country so I guess that there are familiar foods and customs.  

It always struck me that the French ppl spend every cent they earn on rent, cost of living and taxes and that it's hard to save money in France.  Food is very expensive.  OTOH, because it's expensive, ppl eat smaller portions and there is less obesity in France.  If you ever are invited to dinner by a French family, don't be offended if you are served one lamb chop and if they don't offer you seconds.  They just eat less.  

As an American, I am biased towards living in America. But you are free to visit France (may I suggest for more than a few days) and you are free to come to your own conclusions.

Answer 3

Pros: Food, cheap and lovely.  Same with the wine.  99% of the country is utterly safe to go in - even alone at night.  Likewise 99% of the country has fresh air and is clean and tidy.  Architecture is 2nd to none.  Nice to drive in.  Rivers and lakes to swim in....  Health care is first rate.  Absolutely first rate.

Cons: Boredom.  Away from the BIG cities, there is next to nothing to do.  The French eat out and that's about it.  Wages are dreadful and unemployment is very high.  (Dont believe the official figures - it's much more liike 20%).

Nowhere is perfect.  Not France;  nor the USA.  Nowhere'!

Answer 4

Another pro (rooting for my team) weapons are tightly regulated here. You don't have to fear that every annoyed person you meet might shoot you.

But I agree with Rillifane, compared to the US we pay huge taxes even though we might not need the health service. There is this belief that we give a lot of money to the government on the understanding that when we need it the government will help, either with socialised health care or help in case of a catastrophe (flooding, earthquakes...). On the other hand when we do need health care, or when one of our family or friend does, we are glad they can receive extremely expensive life saving procedures without bankrupting the whole family, having to beg one's insurance, or just forget about it and hope for the best.

As a Con, this is a highly regulated country, with plenty of laws. Learning which to skirt and which to obey is an acquired skill (but shhh, that's a secret).

To Rillifane: To the 5% you have to add the 3.8% of population in prison that is not taken into account by US statistics, prison population is added to the French statistics.  ;) But then when we start comparing the way the statistics are gathered the differences are staggering.

Answer 5

Well, I am from France and my husband is American. I moved to the States a few years ago to be with him because since I already spoke English and the job market in France would not have been easy for him to get a job quickly, we thought it was easier to do it this way. A year and a half ago we made the firm decision to move to France at the end of 2009 and we cannot wait.

Consider that the job situation in France is very different: it is far less flexible so it is more difficult to find a job and even more difficult to make a career change. This being said, unemployment has significantly decreased since the dark years of the late 80's and is now at 8%. Also the number of small businesses being created has boomed so much in the last few years that we heard about it in the American news. It is indeed spectacularly noticeable in my hometown whenever I go back on vacation, it is far more dynamic economically.

I left a good teaching job in France and worked 3 times more hours here for less money (as a high school teacher). I also left a place I owned to end up becoming a tenant here so for me moving to America has been a downgrade. Some of my younger friends who moved here in their early 20's had on the contrary more opportunities than they would have had if they had stayed in France so it's really a case by case situation, you cannot compare a country to another country just like that. But a year after moving I made a career change and started my own business which was so easy in the American system. Regulations being different, I couldn't do this job in France, so I'll have to make another career change there as I don't plan to go back to teaching. Still, we're moving as for us, the cost of living here is just too high to enjoy life (we are in MA, it would probably be different in many parts of the States) and mostly because not having health care is just too scary and stressful.

It is indeed cheaper to live in France and there is less pressure to make a lot of money because your basic needs are covered there. Despite a crazy rise in the 2000's, real estate is still cheaper in France (in a high market) than in America (in a low market) on average and so are rents (room-mate situations are almost unknown in most of France). But homes are on average considerably smaller than in the US. I bought my 2BDR outside Paris when I was 24 and the mortgage was paid off 11 years later, something I cannot even imagine in Massachusetts. Americans spend a lot of money but not necessarily because they have more, it's because they live on credit their entire life and spend money they don't have. I discovered credit cards when I moved here, no one uses those in France, only debit cards. Most French people had no debts until recently when real estate prices skyrocketed and even now the debt rate is still half of what it is in American households: 66% in FR vs 138% of disposable income in the US (in the UK where real estate is twice the French prices it is 160%). Americans spend so much that the average household savings rate is only 2% of their disposable income when it is 16% in France and the rest of Europe. Now that my new business is working well and I am earning X 1.5 my French salary, I can hardly save anything whereas in France I could save a lot of money while still paying my mortgage (25 % of my after-tax net income could be devoted to leisure and/or savings).

As for the taxes, I always hear that the French are heavily taxed, well here's what I have to say. First, health care is not financed by income tax in France but by the Sécurité Sociale which deals with all aspects of social welfare. From gross to net income, there is a difference of 22% which goes to social welfare. Everything from retirement, health insurance, sick and maternity leave, disability & widow pension, unemployment benefit, etc is included in those 22%. In the US, social security alone is 15% and doesn't allow most people to live on their retirement pension. Then, after those 22% have been deducted, the French pay income tax on the "net" income. When I lived in France, my income tax was 13% and a lot of middle-class people pay less than that: I always heard my parents say that income tax represented one month's pay check for them, therefore less than 10%. So for me, the total difference between gross and net available income was 32%. In the US, when I was a high school teacher, the difference was 28% with my employer paying 90% of my health insurance. If my employer had covered only 50 to 60% as a lot of companies do, the difference between my gross and net would have been well over the 32% I paid in France. Now that we are both self-employed, our income tax is 24%. This doesn't include social security or any form of retirement saving, it doesn't include health care or any social benefit either. So my husband and I calculated that what goes into those 32% in France would cost us a minimum of 70% of our income here for even less coverage. We cannot of course afford to spend that much otherwise we couldn't pay for housing and food, so between income tax, a crappy health insurance that hardly covers anything and a 401K, this amounts to over 40% (55% if I paid social security, which I don't) of our gross income. Now French friends of ours here who belong to a different income bracket (they are very rich - the husband is a CEO of a corporation and both have very high incomes) told us that they had calculated all their taxes and that all in all they were paying more here than in France. So I don't know how figures are calculated in world comparative charts (French companies and employers are indeed very heavily burdened by taxes) but the reality is often different  and the average French employee is probably less taxed than their American counterpart.

But mostly, you have to take into account the cost of living. I come from a posh town, the safest in France and right outside Paris, so real estate there is way higher than average and of course it is in an expensive region. Still, we calculated that to cover our basic needs (though still including DSL & cell phones), we would need to earn 6 times less there than we earn here (and 3 times less if I didn't own my place and had to rent it). In Paris, groceries cost us only 50% of what we pay in Boston. Only gas is more expensive there but we don't rely on it much in the city and car insurance is half price also, as well as utilities (gas and electric). Of course I am comparing ONE place in France with ONE place in the US (MA has lost a lot of its population in the last few years and there are many reasons for it) but both places are considered expensive in their respective countries and Paris compares favorably to Boston for cost of living/purchasing power. Other pros are higher education is free and childcare much cheaper also.

We are working on starting our new business in France and moving there at the end of 2009 to start effectively working by spring of 2010. Now if you want to work in a field that is regulated, just reading the regulations would give you a headache. But we are still doing it!

It is true that a lot of young people move to the UK and some to America to get better job opportunities but most of them end up returning to France so they must find that the quality of life is higher there. Statistically almost all expatriates return to France and 90% of the French friends I have made here consider it, even those who have a high standard of living in the US. They all say that the main obstacle is the job situation, otherwise most of them would be back already. This is why we are preparing our move carefully and taking our time so we don't end up having employment issues when we get there. Of course, I have been talking mainly about economy but the cost of living and social welfare are not the only reasons we are moving: we just prefer the overall quality of life there, the fact that there is more free time, more things to enjoy, a larger choice of activities for leisure, a better social life, far better food, beautiful lansdcapes within short distance and easy access and the list goes on...

Now don't idealize France because of what I say or even less because of Michael Moore's movie (his documentaries are often caricatural and of course one-sided). As an American living in France you could either love it or hate it and even loving it some things would get on your nerves and seem very frustrating. To me there are more pros in living in France but it's because I know the cons so well I know how to deal with them, for an expatriate it is always more difficult to accept the cons. Although it is true that you won't find stores open 24/7 in France, it is not true either that opening hours are 9 to 5. Most stores are open till 7:30pm -10 pm and all are open on Saturdays. Outside some downtown Paris districts almost everything is closed on Sundays. Outside big cities small shops close on Mondays too and in rural villages they are open only mornings and evenings and close from noon to 4:00 pm (but it's in very low density regions only). If I were you I would follow the advice given just above and try to discover France first if you haven't been yet to see if it fits into your mentality and your expectations in life. Even if your first impression is a good one, keep in mind that it is hard to judge what living in a country is like if you stay less than a year and don't have to deal with the day to day responsibilities. Good luck either way, whatever you decide!

ADDITION: nothing to do with the issue, just commenting on the figures on people in prison. 0.75% of Americans are incarcerated (1.5 M in prisons and 750,000 in jails). I think the figure mentioned by Cabal corresponds to the percentage of people (including men and women) who will be in prison at least once in their life time. The US has indeed the highest rate of prisoners in the world.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/200712...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

Answer 6

fewer Americans

Answer 7

Well, of course the reality is that nothing is free.

The French health insurance system is excellent but then it is also one reason why the French are some of the most heavily taxed people in Europe.

The French government provides many benefits to the citizens but they too must be paid for thru heavy taxation and the consequent damage to the overall economy.

Recently American unemployment rose to 5% and news commentators talked about what a terrible disaster this was. Well, in France they would dance in the streets if unemployment fell to 5% from the 9-10% range it has held for the last decade or so.

There is far more job stability but far less social and economic mobility in France. Getting and keeping the same job for your entire life is quite common in France. Perhaps this is why many ambitious young French entrepreneurs move to Ireland or the UK to work.

The social benefits also come with a high degree of government regulation by some of the most nitpicking officious bureaucrats anywhere.

France has a marvelous cultural stockpile, enough to keep you busy for a lifetime. There is still a considerable appreciation of the artist and the intellectual, something sadly lacking in the USA.

The French are, on average, better informed than Americans and more analytical. On the other hand this also makes them less decisive.

EDIT@Cabal: I'm not sure where you get that 3.8% number. to the best of my knowledge the current prison population of the USA at all levels is around 2 million in a population of over 300 million.

Answer 8

well you don't have to move there for your whole life. a few years would be a great expierience, just make sure that you would be financially secure and that you can speak fluent french because the people will seem a lot less snoody if you can speak on there level. i would go for it. Bon Chance!

Answer 9

Pro: Good cheese, good wine, good government benefits, you don't have to shower as often.

Cons: French people everywhere, they don't shower as often. You have to know french.

Answer 10

A great deal of "l'attractif" of France depends on your personal situation and on you, as an individual.

Let's assume that you meet all the requirements for immigration, which are comparable to those of the United States (or any other western nation, for that matter). With that out of the way, with the proverbial green light to "pack your things and move there", take the following into consideration:

1. Do you have to work for a living?

It can be downright depressing in France, proof in the fact that over one million French nationals of working age voluntarily expatriate themselves every year. If you'll click on the link to the Forbes Misery Index below, which provides a chart showing how, and to what degree, your gross earnings will be depleted before you see your first centime, you'll see what I mean.

2. Do you speak, read and write French?

This may seem obvious, but it never ceases to amaze me how many English-speakers go to France assuming that all French speak English, and that they'd much prefer to converse in that language than their own! The English have a brilliant word for it: cheek!

3. Do you require the American "24/7" availability of goods and services?

With the exception of a few businesses in Paris and l'Ile de France (such as the Virgin Mega-Store), France is still very much a Monday-through-Friday, 9-5 country, with businesses frequently closed for a couple of hours at noon.

Much of this is cultural, some is due to the nature of French employment laws, but that's beside the point; If you'd like to be able to whip into the local Lidl (Europe's answer to Walmart) for a pint of Häagen-Dazs at two in the morning, you'll be disappointed.  

The above are the three things that - in my and my husband's opinion - any potential immigrant to France should take into consideration.

Personally, and because we can, we work in the US with an eye to retiring in either  France or Spain. Then again, we would never consider working anywhere within the European Union while eligible to work in the US.

On a more generalized note, France is a very nice country and for a lot of reasons. It's pretty, historically interesting, geographically diverse, and filled with genuinely nice people.

If you haven't been, I strongly encourage you to visit for an extended time, say two months if you can swing it. Although in no way comparable to actually making it your home, it will give you a feel for la belle and her people.

You and France may well be perfect for each other, or you may decide it will simply be one of your favorite places to visit.

Either way, bonne chance :-)