Seeing France’s true colours
Your romantic visions of the country will fade with time, says reader.
After reading a letter in May’s Connexion, I dug out a light-hearted memoir I had published in 1993 in a fledgling English newspaper The Recorder.
A reader's letter rebuked me for being too naïve about life in France and confidently predicted that my youthful romantic vision would speedily evaporate.
Well, 15 years on, yes, the scales have fallen from my eyes. Today, I retain a more ambiguous affection for the country I chose to settle in.
For all those years the French have constantly spoken of being demoralisé and predicted ‘catastrophe’ being imminent. To my perception, this doom and gloom has created an unhealthy malaise of timidity and fear, which only sweeping change can possibly hope to dispel.
Mr Chirac, in his last year in office urged the French to stop being so "frightened".
President Sarkozy, at a difficult time economically world-wide, is striving to bring about great change believe needed to resuscitate the French and bring them into the 21st Century.
It must include a modernisation of French Inheritance Law, especially as France remains keen on British (and foreign) buyers choosing to make their home here, so highly beneficial to the French economy.
Anthony Attard
Argeles sur Mer
