Living expenses in Montpellier?

[Alen]

Hello all,

I may get a job starting late March at the University of Montpellier. I am looking for information about living expenses, such as rent, food, transportation, etc.
For the past 7 years I have lived in the US.

We are a family of four (2 adults+ 2 small children).

Any information is much appreciated!

cheers,
Alen Hajnal

[Bevdeforges]

Hi, and welcome to the forums!

A couple factors that may affect your perception of the living expenses - what part of the US you have been living in, and whether the job you are looking at is one where you'll be on "local payroll" or not. Local payroll status would put you on the French social insurance system - i.e. for health care, retirement, etc. Otherwise you need to consider some sort of private expat insurance, which can be expensive.

Housing in general in France tends to be much smaller than what you may be used to in the US. A house or flat of 100 - 120 m2 (1000 - 1300 ft2) would normally be considered fine for a family of four, whereas in the US, you'd expect quite a bit more room. For sample rents, try a website like Century21 (which is big in France these days) Century 21 France - About us or Particulier à particulier. IMMOBILIER DE PARTICULIER A PARTICULIER. Choix entre des milliers d'annonces immobilières de particuliers, location, achat et vente en immobilier | PAP.fr

Food is, in general, a bit more expensive (but oh, so good!) and I'm sure you're aware of the difference in gasoline prices if you're going to have a car. Lately we're paying close to $7 a gallon for gas. Driving distances are much less in France, however, and smaller, more fuel efficient cars are the norm, so with some care you can probably make do. Public transport is much less expensive than in the US, especially trains, thanks to public subsidies but you do have to work around the occasional strike.

Health care for a family is rather less expensive, with doctor visits billed at a standard rate which is reimbursed (all but 1 euro) by the national health plus your private "mutuelle" if you're on the local system.

Posted prices for day to day goods generally run about 20% more than in the US, thanks to the VAT (19.6%) that is baked into the pricing, but with a weaker dollar these days, that may be starting to change for the better.

Normally, you'll have no trouble living on a similar salary over here, but you will change (often quite drastically) just how you spend your money.
Cheers,
Bev

[Alen]

Dear Bev,

thanks for the wealth of information. Here is a little bit more info about my situation. I have a job offer for a postdoctoral research position at the Univ of Montpellier for two years. My future boss told me that me and my family would get health insurance without any major charges. I am a citizen of Croatia, my wife is from Hungary, and both my children have US passports because they were born there. So, we're a pretty mixed international family. I speak a little French. Since I will be part of an international science team, knowledge of the french language is not required for me. In everyday life, though, I imagine, I will need it very frequently. How easy is it to get a work permit, driver's license (I have a US one), etc. Would you say bureaucracy is worse than in the US or not?

regards, Alen

[Bevdeforges]

If you're being offered a post-doc position by the university, I assume they will take care of your visa and insurance. They import people on these temporary contracts all the time. You shouldn't need a work permit. If your wife is planning on working, she may be covered under the EU provisions due to her Hungarian nationality. The university should have either an association or a department for taking care of the needs of the foreign research staff. Here in the Paris area, the association is called Sciences Accueil.

Also, check out an association called AVF (Accueil des Villes Françaises), which is a sort of non-commercial welcome wagon group. Their main website is here: AVF -- Accueil

But, since you'll be here for more than one year, you will have to sign a "contract of integration" in order to renew your carte de séjour after the first year. Basically, it means you are expected to attend a day-long class on French life and culture and you are entitled to 400 hours of French classes in preparation for passing a test of basic French. (The university may have their own arrangements, but they are supposed to help you learn basic French.)

Driver's license is generally good for one year. There are now about 8 or 9 states in the US that have reciprocity with France, and if you're from one of those states, you can just swap off your US license for a French one. If not, you'll have to take the written and driving tests, which can be tricky. The website for the US Embassy in Paris has details under their Citizen Services section.

Bureaucracy? Thy name IS France! Don't expect any transaction with the government (referred to here as "the administration") to go quickly or smoothly. You'll need at least two (usually three) visits to any public office to get what you came for, no matter how well prepared you are. But I've found that if you act obnoxiously grateful for any help you get, things seem to go better. I guess civil servants the world over feel underpaid, underloved and not at all appreciated.
Cheers,
Bev

[kiscat]

Alen
I hate to be a negative person but I would advise not coming to Montpellier. I have been living here for 9 months and desperately trying to get a job out of here. The people in general on the streets are very anti-foreigner despite the fact I always speak French and came with a very positive attitude.
The driving is insane, the streets are so filthy with dog excrement, vomit, graffitti, waste, and general uncaring attitude.
I came from New Zealand and am shocked at the standard of living here and the unfriendliness of the average person. The accommodation is dreadful and very expensive and it takes a long time to get anything fixed if it goes wrong. The apartment I and my boyfriend rent has taken 3 months for the body corporate equivalent to even say they will get our boiler replaced so I`ve had a battle everyday with having any hot water or heating. There is rarely decent entry ways to apartments - most are in run-down buildings with no escalator and it is like living in the Bronx here. The poverty is everywhere: roaming dirty young people begging the streets with wolf-like dogs, illegals and gypsies begging and approaching you, people on bicycles or motorbikes have no sense of safety and try to knock you off your feet when you are walking along the squares or streets; and I have an American friend who is here on sabbatical doing research on regeneration of native species and her children are very unhappy at the school - they get yelled at by the teachers for correcting the English, and the teachers are very unkind to other students too. The school day is very long here and then there is massive amounts of homework for evenings and weekends - her children spend most of the weekend getting homework completed and they were top students back in the States. When you become unwell it is almost impossible to find an English-speaking doctor, some boast they speak the language but actually they do not and it is extremely frustrating and frightening to be unwell in this country.
I had always dreamt of coming to France - for me it has been a nightmare and one of the worst decisions I have ever made and I have lived in Malaya, New Zealand, Australia and the UK. I truly wish I`d just left France as a holiday destination. To live here or settle here is to lose money through hefty taxes, no hope for the future, the French are very pessimistic and no wonder with all the bureaucracy and attitude that nothing can change for the better - it`s impossible to buy a clean decent home, food is expensive and everything is expensive without the benefits as the French do not thank you for wasting your money in their country- they have no Occupational Health and Safety regulations like they do in New Zealand and Australia so if you have a problem with your work station or equipment or office then it is just too bad, nothing will be done for you to make your workplace safer or more pleasant.

Why do you want to come to Montpellier? It is probably the worst city in France, it has the highest unemployment, there is high illegal and legal immigration without any infrastructure to support it, and I have not yet found any area I would want to live in or buy in as even the so-called nicer suburbs are very grim, industrial without trees or gardens or lovely houses or anything that remotely ressembled a decent standard of living that I would find in New Zealand. If you don`t speak very good French then you will have enormous difficulties here.
I personally found Paris more friendly and easier as a foreigner although of course it is very expensive as well.
When you rent an apartment here you must buy everything - there are no furnished apartments here - my American scientist friend had to buy even a stove as even the kitchen was empty. Plus the French apartments rarely have showers - they are horrible hand-held fawcets that you slip and slither around in a tiny tub if there is even a bath provided and I`ve fallen over heaps of times and injured my back with this bizarre method of so-called showering.
The supermarkets are unhygienic, smelly, the fish area usually has wet floors and so is dangerous and the fish and meat counters have blood oozing over counters and across the floors and the people think it`s okay to open packets of food to sample the goods and then abandon them on the shelves and floor and there they lie uncollected and stinking. Really unacceptable health hazard and never have I seen this in New Zealand.
Now it is difficult for me to leave as it is hard to get a job from here - so think very carefully before you commit yourself to this place.

[Alen]

dear Kiscat!

I say WOW. I had no idea that things can be so bad. I was told it's a university town with lots of young people and lots of young professionals.
I know that service is not going to be like in the US, but I did not think it would be so bad.
I have lived in the States the last 7 years, in nice and clean places, around friendly people, visiting clean supermarkets, having repairs done within days, if not hours...

Can you email me your American professor friend's contact info? Since I would end up at the Univ of Montpellier, I thought maybe she could give me yet another perspective on life in Montpellier. My email is alenDOThajnalATgmailDOTcom

Thanks,
Alen

[Bevdeforges]

Hi kiscat, and welcome to the forum.

You raise some very valid points in your post. France is definitely NOT a country that is particularly open to outsiders. It's expected that you know what your rights are and aren't and that you know what to do if someone (your landlord or whoever) is cheating you. And unfortunately, there is an attitude in some areas that all foreigners are ripe for being ripped off.

Still, some of us call it home now. And it only took me seven years to get over feeling like you do... not to say I don't have the odd "bad France day" now and then.
Cheers,
Bev

[kiscat]

Hi Alen
My friend is happy to email you and I have forwarded on your details to her. Her name is Cathy and she said she did the same as you before deciding to come to France (talking and discussing with people - she said she found it very helpful).

I, too, was told Montpellier was a university town and all the things you were told. As Christchurch (New Zealand) is also a university town and I'd lived in Oxford and worked for Oxford University and loved it, I also thought the reason it was a university town was a plus.

However, the university students are not obvious, I attended for a short time a dreadful language school called ILA Institute Linguistic Adenet in Rue Jean Moulin. As I've been a language teacher of English in New Zealand and Australia I thought I knew what to expect. However, as I've since found out, education here is not considered an arena to have any fun, the language schools are not pleasant to visit, the buildings are old and the facilities very poor. This ILA school advertises having lovely facilities with air-conditioning and helpful staff. My experience was that the first day they got my homestay details wrong and when I tried to sort it out they refused to talk in English, told me that I needed to attend class and to talk to them after school and when I did they actually slammed the door in my face telling me that the school office was now closed and I had to come back the next day. The air-conditioning did not work and we sat in 40 degree heat in classrooms with windows closed. When I asked for the air-conditioning to be turned on I was told it was on but admittedly not working, so then I asked for the windows to be opened and was told this was not an option as the traffic noise would drown out the teacher's voice. I then suggested the school would like to provide a fan as the air-conditioning was not working and they did advertise they provided good facilities. This was not an option to them. As they still hadn't sorted out my accommodation, I asked to speak to the Manager but was told that was impossible and that I needed to write to him which I did - only to get a very uneducated badly mispelt letter back denying any of the things I had listed.
It didn't get any better, they'd put me in the wrong level, nothing was explained in English = and how a person who had arrived to learn French was supposed to then sort anything out in another language they had come to learn - just sublime to the ridiculous. I also witnessed other students of all ages being rudely spoken to and treated. One young girl was yelled at by the office staff for her behaviour at her host family and the young girl tried to explain that the family had refused her the use of the telephone and had pushed her out the door in the middle of the night with a suitcase and the school would not listen to her side of the story.
Having been a teacher of English to foreigners, migrants and refugees in New Zealand I was appalled at the lack of care for the safety and homestay back-up. In the end I left the school and sued for recovery of costs.

I have since been told that education, particularly private language schools are all pretty much like this, that no-one tries to make it a pleasant experience and that education is a business where fun is just never part of the agenda.

My experiences of France before Montpellier were pleasant as I'd been to Paris as a young girl and had a lovely time and then a few years ago I went to St Malo in Brittany and Mont St Michel in Normandy. I found St Malo delightful. I have also been told that the more north you go (ie: the closer to Germany) the cleaner it is, such as Alsace.

Therefore, I would suggest you either just visit France on holiday or just visit other parts of France if you really are set on living here - regardless it is best to make a visit to check it out before you commit yourself. My American friend, Cathy, says that a woman experiences things differently in terms of safety as well. My boyfriend for example would probably never get people trying to knock him down in the street - he's too big and he's a man.
I note that Bev on the website says it took her 7 years to get over feeling bad about France, I can't say it is worth losing that many years of your life when there are more civilised and cleaner places in the world to live.
Had you considered applying for work in Australia, Alen? It's a very go-ahead place with opportunities and friendly people, stunning variety of countryside, lots of positive attitudes and wildlife. With foreign money you can afford a house with modern facilities and even a garage, garden and possibly some decent land around it. It was getting too expensive for me near the big cities like Sydney and Brisbane and Perth but if you have between $350,000 and $500,000 Australian dollars you can get a really nice place in Queensland and suburbia New South Wales. I think things are only going to get more expensive in housing as more and more English with the British pound emigrating.
Hope this all helps and my friend Cathy will be in touch she said soon.

[Bevdeforges]

Hi kiscat and alen,
I've been to Montpellier, and it's actually a reasonably nice town in lots of ways. Kiscat is right in the sense that language training in France is taken very seriously - and it's the French way or no way at all (for the most part - I did have fun at the language school I attended in Paris, but it was run by the Nouvelles Frontieres travel agency, whose managing director is known to be a little off the wall).

France has different standards for hygiene, "seriousness" and other cultural factors. But for a limited term, like the two years Alen is talking about, it can be a great experience as long as you don't take things as seriously as the locals do.

You should probably try contacting the American Women's Group of Languedoc-Rousillion in Montpellier (since your children are US citizens, you have a claim on membership) - their website doesn't seem to be working at the moment - and try the AVF of Montpellier AVF MONTPELLIER HERAULT . AVF is a sort of a welcome wagon group that should be able to answer questions and get you acquainted with the city.

I had a rough first seven years, but I had lots of other things going on at the same time. Since finding my "space" here (thanks in large part to the AVF group in the area), I've actually taken French nationality. Give France a shot - it's only two years and you might actually have fun.
Cheers,
Bev

[Alex S.]

Wow, indeed, so much dislike for such a beautiful place.
I've been living in Montpellier for a year and a half now. I loved it from the moment I arrived. Sure it took a bit of getting used to, but then so did Auckland when I arrived there. I've got to say that I feel happier in Montpellier now. I guess it's just personal taste. I suppose that my experiences here have been quite different from Kiscat’s and I know that a few bad experiences can quickly change someone’s opinion of a place but please, don’t be put off.
Make a visit first, and think carefully about which area you want to live in. Like any large city, there are some areas that are better than others. Dog crap is certainly an unpleasant problem in many places so I chose to live in Antigone, where they send someone around every morning with a giant vacuum cleaner to pick it all up. With a bit of research, you can find out about things that are likely to irritate you, and avoid them.
Anyway, I'm half way through a good book called "Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" at the moment. I'd like to recommend it to anyone thinking about coming to France.
It explains some interesting points about how France came to be the way it is today and with a bit more understanding of the people and culture it is much easier to see things with an open mind and love France for what it is.