Why do we always think that "ELSEWHERE" is better than our own country? (page 20 of 23)

I went to Portugal, including shopping at LIDL. Okay, it’s a bit cheaper than in France, but you still can’t live like a king on 1000 € a month.

I totally agree with you

Hey, I also forgot—it’s actually crucial—that in Haute-Provence, I have my olive trees. For the first time this year, the weather let me start pruning them. Sure, people might say I could sell them and buy others in Italy, but would you tell someone who’s in love that they should just change partners?

Another reason: my place in the Basque Country, where we spend (in chunks) 2 or 3 months a year. That’s already far enough—Italy would be even farther...

If you have ties to France, it’s normal to be loyal to it. To address the title, we’re not obligated to think that somewhere else is better than our own country.

To echo the title, we're not obliged to think that elsewhere is better than our own country.

Obliged? As if! 😏

🙂 I’m just responding to the way the discussion is phrased—"why always think..." Not *always*, luckily...

I was just teasing you. 😉 I generally agree with your comments, by the way.

😉

Hi,

in Italy; but do you tell someone who’s in love that they just need to change their wife (or husband)?

.

Ah...

You’re right, you’re not ready for a move across the Alps. Here, we change everything—except our soccer team. I was literally told that last week.

Catherine

France is a country that constantly generates a permanent myth about itself.

Yes. And, more seriously, this annoying tendency now seems to be affecting neighboring nations. Some Bretons are severely affected. For now, the grass has never been so green in Brittany. Worse, it’s growing in the middle of winter while in South Africa it’s dying in the middle of summer.

What I found almost unbearable when I lived in France was the tendency there to spin stories about itself. Here’s a very concrete example from this morning’s press: "Macron, the lonely leader of a convalescent Europe" (Le Monde). Oh, how beautiful solitary heroes are!

That’s the classic and symptomatic theme of French culture’s obsession with the "providential man"... By the way, the magazine Marianne devoted an entire article to this. In other words, in France, people love "providential figures" capable of a certain personality cult, bordering on narcissism...😏 France is a country that doesn’t seem able to govern itself autonomously without orders "coming from above" (as Alexandre Jardin put it in one of his interviews). In other words, it needs an eternal, transcendent icon at the national level, like De Gaulle was.

France is a country that constantly generates its own myth. And I don’t like grandiose myths.

At least there are two of us who share the same opinion 🙂 The problem is that by constantly generating this permanent myth, the country ends up going in circles.

I went to Portugal, including at LIDL, okay it's a bit cheaper than in France, but you still can't live like a nabob on 1000 euros a month

Like a nabob, of course not, but still better than in France. Restaurants are cheaper (bigger difference than with shops), same for real estate.

After all, it depends on your situation in France (homeowner, family, etc.). In France, in a big city with 1000 € and rent, you live very poorly (I know what I'm talking about). Then there are even cheaper places than Portugal, sure, I just used it as an example because the country is attracting more and more French retirees. It's not the place that makes me dream in itself (but I don't dream of anything, actually).

It’s all very personal, that’s true. With a 1000 € pension, you have to break all your material ties in France (no duplicates possible: two rents are a no-go, and owning a house in France plus renting in Portugal—with 1000 €, I just don’t see how). Or sell everything here to buy there? Yeah, possible. With 1000 €, you’ll just scrape by... here or elsewhere.

Yeah, it definitely depends on your ties... I talked about it with my mom, for example—she could sell and live better there. She doesn’t really have ties left, but an unknown country, the language, losing her bearings—she’s not motivated.

Me? I’d love to find a place I love and just go. Oh well! !

With 1000 € a month, once you've paid your rent, utilities, and normal expenses, I guess even in Portugal you can't go out to eat very often—even if it's cheaper.

But I don’t have anything against people who leave; no issue with that at all.

Just saying: no, we don’t always think the grass is greener elsewhere. That phrase, as it stands, doesn’t mean anything.

With 1,000 € a month, once you’ve paid rent, utilities, and normal expenses, I guess even in Portugal you can’t go out to eat very often—even if it’s cheaper. But I don’t have anything against people who leave; no issue with that idea at all.

But just: no, we don’t always think the grass is greener on the other side.

Also, keep some savings for round trips back to France if you need medical treatment. A lot of retirees who moved to Portugal still get treated in France. Go figure...

Hi there,

I was just thinking earlier, while driving and listening to the radio, that there’s no shortage of examples illustrating France’s situation: centralist, authoritarian in a hierarchical way, very 19th-century, and far from the standards of other European countries when it comes to freedoms, human rights, and society. The discussion was about the prison system, and experts agreed that it’s outdated. They also acknowledged that while some progress—meaning better conditions and greater efficiency—has been made over the past few decades, it’s only happened under pressure from European legislation, not because France took the initiative itself. This is just one example among many of a country still clinging to an authoritarian system that’s now obsolete, with a passion for the State, which is portrayed as virtuous and indispensable according to dogma. This example can be applied, *mutatis mutandis*, to other administrative sectors, like transportation, which lag behind the average because they’re weighed down by monopolistic legacies and endless exemptions from privatization that EU membership was supposed to enforce.

Michel

With 1000 euros a month, once you've paid your rent, bills, and normal expenses, I guess even in Portugal, you can't go out to restaurants very often, even if they're cheaper.

But I don’t have anything against people who leave—no issue with that idea at all.

But just to say: no, we don’t always think the grass is greener elsewhere. That phrase, as it is, doesn’t mean much.

Well, way more than in France...

That said, net income doesn’t necessarily mean much. I live on less than 1000 € a month and manage to go out to eat about once a week and travel regularly. It’s all about good deals, resourcefulness, etc.

It’s easier if you have a property to sell before moving somewhere else (so no rent to pay).

My mom, who lives on a half-pension of 800 €/month plus some cleaning jobs on the side, would have gained purchasing power by selling her place and moving to Portugal (just an example—the country) instead of staying in PACA, which is a very expensive region. Still, I get that taking the leap isn’t easy when you don’t speak a word of English, you’re afraid of being alone, or you don’t know the country, etc.

Otherwise, there are countries cheaper than Portugal, but you’ve got to want to live there (cheaper European countries like Ukraine don’t attract many people... and yet with 1000 € there, you’re basically rich)

Of course, but we’re not *obliged* to think that France is better than everywhere else either.

If you have ties to France, it’s normal to be loyal to it. To echo the title, we’re not forced to think that elsewhere is better than our own country.

Totally agree! 🙂

That statement is hollow.

It must be said that for decades they’ve been told that France has the best healthcare system (which is far from Bloomberg’s opinion). Within a few months’ difference, the Portuguese don’t die any more than the French. We’ve just seen with Johnny and France Gall—when you have a fatal illness, you die just as much in France as anywhere else (except you pay more).

With 1000 € a month, once you’ve paid your rent, bills, and normal expenses, I suppose even in Portugal you can’t go out to restaurants very often, even if they’re cheaper. But I don’t have anything against people who leave—no issue with that idea at all.

But just this: no, we don’t always think the grass is greener elsewhere.

Also, keep some savings for round trips to France if you need medical treatment. Many retirees who’ve moved to Portugal still get treated in France. Go figure...