The French connection.......

The current round of French elections is garnering even less interest than the US merry-go-round, but they have led to quite a lot of interest in the French population of London which is sufficiently numerous to justify their own Deputy.

The figures are astonishing. It is estimated that over 400,000 live in London, mostly clustered around South Ken and the Cromwell Road. That makes London the fifth largest French city, bigger than Nice or Nantes. In English terms the French colony is the equivalent of Leicester, Portsmouth or Bradford.

There are French cafes, patisseries, grocers and bookshops. There is a French lycee that has the highest standards, so much so that many non-French parents try to get admission for their kids, and the fees are a fairly modest £2,000 per term.

So what’s the attraction? I reckon it’s some push-me and some pull-me.

At one end of the scale there are the wealthy. The ‘push’ part is mostly Hollande. The prospect of confiscatory taxes and an anti-business political culture seems to have provoked something of an exodus amongst the wealthy which has produced a spike in demand for up-scale housing in the favoured areas. The ‘pull’ part is especially the fact that London is the financial capital of the world and the place to be if you work in financial services.

At the other, there is the well-educated, able, ambitious, creative younger generation. London offers them better opportunities than Paris. There is less bureaucracy, especially in setting up a business. It is also more fun and less stuffy for young people. It has a buzz that appeals to them that Paris lacks.

It seems that it is also much more tolerant of minorities. London is not bothered where you came from or what colour you are as long as you are up to the job.

These are exactly the sort of people that the UK needs, and France’s loss will be our gain.

And yet already I can hear the whinging about ‘stealing British jobs’, that great myth put about by such as the Daily Mail (which has just outsourced its photo-editing to India and sacked all its UK staff).

Bienvenu!