I'm really surprised; in a good way! France is bureaucratic right? Well like most things in France that's not the whole story; It goes a little deeper and is a little more complicated. Forms for example. This week I had occasion to want to venture into the world of French form filling. Now in England if you get a form then for every page of form there is as least one possibly two of explanation to tell you how to fill it in. In addition to that the government web site usually has additional supporting info. In France; for this particular form, there is the form.... that's it. So you ring up and ask questions, you join the self help forums and you get a little closer. It also has to be said that official phone numbers in France seem to have some sort of persistence check applied to them. The first time you ring....you get a very polite but not very useful answer. The second time you ring...they will give you a hint at how you might find the answer. This is where the persistence check kicks in. If you ring a third time you have passed the test then bingo, the magic happens! In this case the man on the phone calmly and very helpfully asked if I would like someone from the prefecture to make an appointment to come round to my house at a time convenient to me to assist in filling in the form! Errrr yes,but...will there be a charge...No.....eeer well yes please. Low and behold the next day an extremely nice and competent person arrives at the allotted time, fills the form in with me, all the lower case i's dotted and the sevens duly crossed in just over an hour. Brilliant. Now as I said before France has a reputation for bureaucracy, but what are the chances of getting that kind of service in the UK. I would suggest zero (about as likely as getting a doctor to come out to your house.....which come to think of it also happens in France).
On this very surprising, occasion.....Vivre La France!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment