London, France's sixth biggest city

RenovationMan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930

"More French people live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg and it is now thought to be France's sixth biggest city in terms of population. What is attracting a new generation of young French professionals to the city?

On a wet Friday night in Hackney, a group of young professional women walk into a pub. Laughing about the British weather, they shake their umbrellas, peel off their raincoats and make their way to the bar.

Like many Londoners at the end of a busy working week, they have come to unwind over a few drinks.

But if you move a bit closer, you realise they are all speaking French. They are not tourists, exchange students or off-duty au pairs. They all work in creative industries, have lived in east London quite some time and consider it home.

London has a long-standing French community - but it is no longer confined to the streets around the embassy in South Kensington, where you will find French bookshops, patisseries and pavement cafes patronised by impeccably dressed mothers dropping off their children at the posh Lyc!e Français Charles de Gaulle. "

I wonder where London stands in other country's list of cities, such as Poland, etc. No wonder property is bonkers there.

spadoosh

Have you ever been to any of those cities?! The population is about 6 people.

What tends to happen in france is they have the city were very few people live and then millions and millions of vilages (maybe a slight exageration) dotted around were a large portion of the population actually live.

I remember having to drop someone off at bordeaux airport @ 9am. Thinking like an englishman i set off with plent of time in case of traffic. I saw about 13 cars in there rush our.

Just got back form france. It took 7 hrs to get from charente region to calais and took the same to get from folkestone to the north west. A trip that is 200 miles shorter on this side!


As for the figures id' imagine it would be very similar if you looked at the stats for Paris and the amount of foreign nationals living there.

the_flying_pig

300,000-400,000 seems like a fairly toppy estimate top me. about one in every twenty people in london french?

the 2001 census said there were 40,000 french born people in london.
for a figure ten times that to be true there'd need to be the equivalent of 20 seperate small-town sized enclaves of 20,000 each, and i don't quite believe it.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

On a related note, I asked a French colleague about voting recently- she queued for 3 hours in the rain outside one of the ex-pat stations in London. You can say many things about the French, but they do at least take their democracy seriously.

spadoosh

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

On a related note, I asked a French colleague about voting recently- she queued for 3 hours in the rain outside one of the ex-pat stations in London. You can say many things about the French, but they do at least take their democracy seriously.

The french are awesome, its the UK thats bent!

French: 'were very not happy with the reforms and you havent listened, were going to burn paris down'

English: 'i wanna ipod, im gonna burn london down'


French: 'We dont like the austerity measure imposed by the right winged government, we shall vote left'

English: 'We dont like austerity, lets get the conservatives in charge, and gordon browns ugly and looks stupid'


French: 'I drive my car 2 miles a week why should i pay road tax a more fair way is toll roads (make the people who use it the most pay)'

England: 'lets build the m6 toll road (ontop of road tax) and watch it sit empty because its just not really needed and sit by and watch the m25 stop for 3 hrs twice a day'


French: 'o no, road traffic accident, get people to hospital and push this car out of the way, start the traffic going round the grass verge to keep it moving'

English: 'o no, rta, get people to hospital, shut the road down, make everywhere within 20 mile radius stop, call bob and tell him to bring his tape measure we need to measure the distances between the cats eyes and every piece of the car that is strewn across the motorway. o and dont forget, get the highways boys over, theres a bit of blood and well need to resurface the whole of the m62'

brit1234

the_flying_pig wrote: »

300,000-400,000 seems like a fairly toppy estimate top me. about one in every twenty people in london french?

I would say that a sizeable proportion are actually Algerian. I have hardly met many French here but large amounts of French Algerians..

chucky

brit1234 wrote: »

I would say that a sizeable proportion are actually Algerian. I have hardly met many French here but large amounts of French Algerians..

That's fine Brit but they're still French passport holders or they're nationality is French regardless of their family ethnicity.

Central London and the nicer areas of London has lots of French people where they even have their own schools.

PasturesNew

France is very close to England, so it's not surprising. In fact, London is closer to Paris than it is to me .... and it's easier to get from London to Paris than London to me (and cheaper probably).

lostinrates

chucky wrote: »

That's fine Brit but they're still French passport holders or they're nationality is French regardless of their family ethnicity.

Central London and the nicer areas of London has lots of French people where they even have their own schools.

I was only half listening this morning to this on radio four, but heard part where they were refering to francophones, rather than just french, and a gathering where a large percentage of the 'french' people gathered were francophone illegal immigrants i believe. Also ofcourse, the issue of racism in france was discussed and that black and muslim french people interviewed said here we are many years more ahead, more acceoting. One person even refered to the american dream and how uk is much the same in social outlook.

Joe_Bloggs

What are the stats for the the Spanish and Portuguese ? It is not surprising that neutral London territory is a popular event where sport is concerned in the UK.
J_B.

Joe_Bloggs

The French are to create an MP for Northern Europe. There may be close to 80% of the constituency in the UK if not just London.
J_B.