Letters: Stop moaning about French bureaucracy
Connexion reader says that foreign residents must display more self-awareness
French administrative services try to make it clear what documents are required
RVillalon / Shutterstock
To the Editor,
In almost every edition of The Connexion readers make known their bitterness towards all things concerned with their dealings with French officialdom, seemingly blissfully unaware that the fault, such as there may be, lies with themselves.
Over the past months, among many others, we have heard the complaint of a reader that he has to drive each month to the pharmacy to collect his medicines, apparently totally unaware that the government has directed that it cannot afford to fill 65 million French medicine cabinets with a year’s supply of medicine on an annual basis. Seems reasonable to me.
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Then we had the reader who condemned the manner in which his commune called for votes from absentees, completely unaware that the verb abstenir means to abstain, not to be absent.
Then a reader who found French banking practices incomprehensible because his withdrawals from ATMs were limited, obviously unaware that such provisions were for his protection and that a few moments online would enable him to increase the limit to a figure of his choosing.
And we all, of course, have stood behind one of our compatriots at the desk of some government office while it is explained to him that he has not understood the requirements needed to deal with his concern and that he has not produced all of the necessary documentation, whereupon he loses his temper and leaves, intent on making known to all how impossible it is to deal with French officialdom.
I do not make the slightest criticism of anyone for falling into these errors, but what I do object to is their default position that it is all the fault of the French. If they could become a little more self aware I am sure they would find life here far more to their liking.
Stuart Ross, Pas-de-Calais
What is your experience of French bureaucracy? Share your experiences at letters@connexionfrance.com
