Dear Val
Luckily for us, a fellow TAG reader said that if we were over 60 we did not have to pass the formal French exam just an interview where we will be asked basic questions based around a rather verbose pamphlet sent to all 18 year olds on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. These range from recognising the colours of the French flag, to the duty to voting and the responsibility to send children to school to the age of 16. Disabled people are also exempt from the language exam.
Having read the recent debate in TAG on integration and the ability to speak French all of this rather intrigues me. You, Val, very kindly think that we are a good example of people who are integrated. We are surprised to hear this every time we read it. We basically moved here because neither of us wanted to get dragged back into consultancy when we retired. Ross does things in the village because there are so few of us here and if he gets sufficiently irritated by weeds or something else he does something about it. I think I am integrated by going to a Patchwork group for my own pleasure. Now is this integration or behaving as we would have in the UK? Doing what we like? Similarly trying to restore the church is something we are doing for our own pleasure. We love the reward of the concert, the sound and giving people pleasure and we cope with the brickbats, fatigue and effort.
However the ability to speak French is another issue. As someone who is dyslexic the very idea of an exam filled me with such fear that I would have played the disability card had it included a written section. I cannot spell in English and French is an absolute nightmare. When British people talk about reading the language I think they must have come from a land of geniuses. Hazel was so right when she said we all have different abilities and have come from differing educational opportunities and different levels of confidence. Every time I ask a British person with poor French, how they got on in hospital or at a restaurant, the reply always is that they didn't need to because the French wanted to speak English to them.Finally we should all remember that while some of us may be shaken by Mr Farrage, the country we are so keen to become integrated in is much more racist and anti-semitic than the UK and if Marine Le Pen becomes an even stronger political force after the next elections we may have become integrated in a country we no longer wish to be part of.Ginny
Val says a reasoned post without resorting to intemperate language.
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