Brits in France: brave or mad?

Britons in France are pioneers and courageous but in a “quite mad situation,” according to a photographer who has published a book on them.

Rip Hopkins spent time in the Dordogne meeting British residents for Another Country. He told Connexion: “Throughout history people have moved for financial reasons or been displaced by war or famine. Often they flock to the cities to make money.

“But in the Dordogne, I was meeting people who had moved to the middle of nowhere to places where they had no links. Bergerac Airport acts as an umbilical cord to Britain.

“It’s courageous and unprecedented. The British in France are like pioneers.”

Part of his family are French and he is married to a French woman and while they used to live in Paris they now spend most of their time in Brussels.

“I feel more French than British but have not got a strong attachment to any one place.

“That is one of the things I did have in common with the British in the Dordogne. Many didn’t feel any strong attachment to anywhere in Britain so found it easy to move to France.

“It takes a lot of courage to move to a foreign country. The more time I spent with the British the more the situation seemed quite mad.”

Hopkins, who originally came to France to study, added: “People’s reasons for moving here were interesting too; the climate, the geography, a good life.

“People rarely said they made the move because they liked French culture; it is more that they feel Britain isn’t what they feel it ought to be or how they thought it once was.”

He said: “The whole issue of expatriate identity and how the British do or don’t assimilate into French culture is fascinating.”

However eccentric the choice he says Britons have had to change as well: “Before they did not feel the need to integrate but now assimilation is becoming more important.

“The British are in turmoil. Britain was better off and people with work or investments in the UK could get by.

“Now, there is less work and money in Britain and people have to assimilate into the French system to live.”

Hopkins, who first started making documentaries with Médecins sans Frontières, has done 35 books on minority groups but plans a deeper look at the British in France in a new film.