Despite the tendency to place people into binary categories, in reality we were all part of a dynamic, shifting mosaic of incomers. I felt the strings of a loose connection with everyone, yet not through any bind of nationality. It was more an association through place. Juliette got closest to it when she tried to make sense of our connections, saying that we were all there at the end of that track because we “love nature”. No matter our original reasons for arriving in the Ariège, those of us who stayed did so because of how we felt when we gazed out on that corner of the Pyrenees.
Not A Bargaining Chip
Fast-forward again to the summer of 2016 and the shock result of the Brexit referendum. At the time of writing, Britons face an uncertain future regarding their right to reside in France. Much of this uncertainty hangs on the question of guaranteed residency rights of EU nationals living in Britain that would mirror reciprocal rights for Britons living in other EU countries.
While the press has often focused on the uncertainty of EU migrants within the UK, there are many Brits in Europe who feel themselves to be in limbo and ignored. And even when the media gives them attention, articles are often supported with stereotypical images of Brits sitting around in Spanish bars draped with Union flags, portraying a kind of cheaper and sunnier Little England. All of this conveys the idea of people with sufficient privilege to escape the UK greyness, “ex-pats” who spend their time sitting around drinking together. Why would the so-called “left-behind” who voted out care about what happens to these advantaged few? Yet the largest numbers of Brits in Europe are of working age, forming a significant British element in the EU labour market.30 Another interesting figure to emerge is the estimated number of British citizens in France, given as 157,062, in second place behind Spain. This is not a particularly high number, especially considering that the number of French citizens living in the UK is actually higher. It all helps to balance the earlier media articles that talked about the waves of Brits “flooding” into France, the “British invasion” of property seekers.
Some fifteen months after the Brexit referendum I managed to catch up with Susan. It was one of those late summer days when the Ariège rain clouds refuse to budge and I’d spent the morning killing time by dodging puddles in Saint-Girons, and pondering on the permanent closure of so many shops, including Lidl. Now, sitting damply in a café, I could sense that her fury hadn’t weakened at all over the year. ‘I’m as angry now as I was back then,’ she grimaced. ‘I don’t feel comfortable with being English and I certainly don’t trust the UK government to sort it out properly. And I really resent being seen as a bargaining chip.’ She confessed that she was pursuing the opportunity to take Irish citizenship in order to retain an EU foothold, but this wasn’t an option open to her partner, so it was only a partial solution. ‘I do feel a link with the Irish,’ she said, ‘and I’ve always felt European. I thought that would be enough, and it would be there forever. We’ve considered going off to live in other countries at some point, but now we feel really restricted.’ What did she mean by that? ‘We’re afraid to move from France in case we lose our residency status,’ she explained. ‘And I really worry that the other EU states will get so annoyed with the UK that they’ll make it difficult in reciprocation. If the UK’s not being reasonable, then why should they be?’ she questioned.
She had other significant worries, including financial anxiety that revolved around the fluctuating exchange rate, which had diminished their pensions dramatically. In addition, no one knew what would happen to the basic free healthcare provision that they received in France. ‘We pay the top-up mutual but what’s going to happen to our entitlement to the basic?’ she asked.
I asked her if she felt that the issue of Britons in the EU had seemed neglected, with the focus more on EU citizens in the UK. ‘Well, yes,’ she said, ‘but I feel desperately sorry for them. Those working families, with children in schools, houses bought, I feel so angry on their behalf too, not just my own. Their situation is far worse. What happens to families with children born in different countries?’
I was beginning to sense a disconnection with Britain. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying to find a better word to sum up her feelings. ‘It’s a dislocation,’ she said. ‘The link is broken. The world has got smaller, but at the same time we’ve become further removed from England.’ I knew that six years ago she’d professed to be totally uninterested in the idea of a return to England, and I guessed that this hadn’t changed. ‘Absolutely no, not England,’ she said. ‘I might consider Scotland though,’ she mused, ‘but not England, not ever.’
I left Susan with the gloom of Brexit making the day feel even greyer and damper than before. As I drove home, a thought began to grow. Six years ago, when travelling around talking with the English incomers, I’d been overwhelmed by their efforts not to be seen as part of a British network. They mostly knew each other but were at pains to play it down. And while they depended on each other for advice on the forum, that very same site had included warnings about such dependence. Yet now there was a much more serious threat in the form of Brexit, and I wondered whether this would lead to the Brits in France forgetting their irritations with each other. Who cared now about the morals of eating bacon and bread pudding when your right to continue living in France was on shaky ground?
The more I thought about it, the more I anticipated a sea change in how prepared people were to identify as part of a British network. People had always sought out the expatriate network, whether they admitted it or not, both as a practical solution but also due to an emotional need to retain a link with who or what was familiar to them; what one forum member termed “the comfort of expats”. That emotional need was still there, but it was heightened now, as everyone found themselves within a common situation of uncertainty. This would surely generate a need for a more practical solidarity, strength in numbers. And the tangible signs were there, with people joining networks such as the buoyant RIFT (Remain in France Together) network, a campaigning and support group with thousands of members that described itself as Working together to protect the rights of UK citizens living in France.
So after all that avoidance of being seen as part of the Brits in France phenomenon, and the efforts to draw a boundary between oneself and everyone else, there were signs at last of a stronger manifestation of a British-in-France identity. It had always been there, of course, a sometimes uncomfortable reminder of who the incomers were. Now it was becoming more tangible, something to welcome against the common threat.
Acknowledgements
This book was made possible by the willingness of the English incomers to welcome me into their lives and talk through their experiences over endless cups of tea. I give heartfelt thanks to them all. Names and identifying details have been changed to maintain privacy.
I would also like to thank my family for their encouragement during the writing of this book. Thanks are due too to members of the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, for giving advice and guidance during the original academic study.
If you have enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. You can find more writing and evocative images from Ariège and other places at www.michelle-lawson.com.
Notes
* * *
1Wake-up call for Brits in France, Sunday Express, October 9 2005.
2C’est la folie,The Telegraph, May 1 2010.
3Les Rosbifs du jour, The Times, March 19 2004.
4‘Soccer bungs cash used by drug gang’: Shocking claims by Brits held in France, The Sun, March 23 2010.
5Find a rustic retreat away from other Brits. The Independent, January 14 2004.
6Mind your hubcaps, monsieur … the English class war is here. Mail on Sunday, March 7 2004.
7What information is there on British migrants living in Europe? January 2017.
9Simonnet et al. (2008). Ariège.
10Touret, L., Bourniquel, C., & Poisson, C. (2010). L’espace rural en Midi-Pyrénées: dynamique démographique et accès aux équipements.
11Cruel crossing: Escaping Hitler across the Pyrenees (2013).
12Clear Waters Rising (1996).
13http://www.paysdelours.com/fr/communes-adet/massat/massat.html
14Watching the English (2005).
15Peter Thorold
16http://www.grillou.com/articles/once-upon-a-time-rimont-ariege-1944
17www.resistance-ariege.fr
18The Freedom Trail (2005) by Scott Goodall.
19La Depeche, 28 March 2017.
20http://www.fredsabourin.com/article-passeur-de-liberte-59665554.html
21http://lesmontagnardstarasconnais.com/120909.htm
22http://lesmontagnardstarasconnais.com/120528.htm
23The great escape? The Sunday Express, July 10 2005.
24Beware of smug expats, The Sunday Times, October 15 2006.
25Beware of the pitfalls as you break for the border, The Times, October 13 2007.
26Writing my own journal, The Independent, May 4 2009.
27http://heindehaas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/expats.html
28http://www.pyreneanway.com/2017/12/rewilding-pyrenees-news-about-bears/?lang=en
29http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Marcus_berkeley_0028E_10746.pdf
30Fewer Britons living in EU than previously thought, study finds. The Guardian, 27 January 2017.
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