Our neighbor is 105. Technically her home address is at an EHPAD (retirement home) but we see Christian so often across the street at her daughter’s house we think that she’s part of the neighborhood. On most Sundays we give her a hand getting the wheelchair across the threshold and for that we are rewarded with glasses of champagne, sometimes lunch, and always a lively conversation that often includes reminiscences that might go almost back to her birth year of 1919. We’ve heard first-hand accounts of sorting through the rubble of her grandparents’ house even years after WWI ended, living under Nazi occupation as a radio journalist in Paris and Luxembourg, and obtaining the right to vote and to open a bank account without her husband’s permission. I wondered about those dates and other significant events in French history over the last century.

When you are preparing to move to a new country and even years after you’ve made the leap, naturally you’re looking at all of the advantages offered in your new homeland. We still comment on the quality of life here, affordable healthcare for everyone, efficient public transportation, beautiful landscapes, the rich history and culture, and the sense of community that we’ve found from day one. With that in mind, it came as a surprise to read the results of a survey that was taken at the end of last year regarding the desire of the French to leave this country. About one third of the respondents in general were ready for a change of citizenship status to expatrié(e) while that increases to half if you look only at young people.