We are incomers, expat, etrangers, settlers in a European country, France. Talking to the French who live around us how many were born or had parents born in France?
We are constantly amazed at the number of people whose family background is Spanish. Families came en masse during the Civil war, over and around the Pyrenees they flooded in, unwanted and jobless.
Then the influx from Algeria, so many families with roots in Algeria, roots torn up sometimes after numerous generations moving back to France. More welcomed than the Spanish as they were basically French, Algeria being a French department. When there was the memorial day to the end of the Algerian war over 200 people attended the church in Varen.
The French that have backgrounds here tend to be " paysan" ones who have never moved away, staying in their small enclaves even now, with jokes and grudges between local villages.
Parisiens classed as foreigners by the locals, and yet many Parisiens family homes in the area and many spent childhoods here.
How many generations will it be before we are part of the indigenous population.
For Malc and I, never, without young here we, whatever we do will always be " les anglais" It would be nice to just be thought of as a group as Europeans but that will never happen either, the way Europe is going.
I wonder if the Dutch with their superior language skills integrate better, they tell me they do and it is not often you see big groups of Dutch people eating out together or having their own clubs, or boule groups etc. Are they not as numerous as the Brits or do they just fit in better?
Citizens of the world with a rich cultural, mixed heritage, we are all people after all and brought up with different ideas, religions and degrees of prosperity, but under the skin we are all the same.
Malc and I were born Yorkshiremen, from the North of England now Europeans living in South West France. Proud of our heritage and background but happy to move on with new labels always hoping for more.
I do after all have the label " French grandma " by the grandchildren! and that might have to satisfy me.
Val says this is one of my musings but I do wish YOU would put pen to paper ( or finger to ipad) and voice yours. If you are a second homer with toe in the UK in the winter do you relate to any of this?
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