Crisis Stings Britons in France and Spain

[KoKo]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Democratic Underground)





May 30, 2009
Crisis Stings Britons in France and Spain
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH

LASSAY-LES-CHÂTEAUX, France — A stumbling British economy is doing what the French have not been able to do in 200 years: rout the British.

For more than a decade, Englishmen have been one of Britain’s biggest cross-channel exports: they bought second homes in French villages, or even retired there. They came to make up as much as one-fifth of the population in some French villages.

But now the flow of Britons is slowing and, in some cases, reversing course.

Only instead of bidding them a relieved adieu, many of the French are longing for them — and their money — to stay.

Some expatriates have already headed back to Britain, while the movement of others has been curtailed by the stagnant housing market on both sides of the English Channel, though a hard core is determined to remain and pursue the French dream, whatever turmoil rocks the global economy.

(snip)

More...at... companies.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/business/global/30return.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnlx=1243670514-7AcdZJfcJ7VmCyJJ2T%20hVQ&pagewanted=print

[AzNick]

1. "A stumbling British economy is doing what the French have not been able to do in 200 years:..."

"... rout the British"

Ok, what 200 years is the author talking about?

If this is a reference to the HUNDRED YEARS war, which lasted about 100 years, then indeed they were routed out of France.

[KoKo]

2. Just note...that it's the New York Times doing this article....

So put in "bias." Still...there were many moving to France to start a new life invigorating farms that were abandoned.

It's just something to think about if you parse through the NYT's hysteria.

[AzNick]

4. True in a sense...

Don't think that the Brits are single-handedly saving the French countryside. There are far more French folks who own a secondary residence in the countryside than foreigners. The Brits and Germans have been part of the landscape for a very long time. The Germans love Brittany, for a reason I ignore, the Brits are more attached to the wine countries as well as Normandy, of course, which is right across the channel and looks a bit like Southern England sometimes with its Tudor houses.

[Recursion]

5. 200 years since Napoleon tried to rout the British, I assume n/t

[AzNick]

6. Entente Cordiale = 1904 nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. about 200 years since the French helped chuck the British out of the US?

:shrug:

Or 200 years since Napoleon won some battles in what we, at least, call the Napoleonic Wars. We haven't actually been at war since 1815, so they haven't been trying to 'rout' us.

[izquierdista]

3. British roast meal?

I would think that once every couple of months would be enough to remind people why they left. :puke: