Housing in Montpellier, France?
does anyone know how much is it a house there? i plan to maybe live there sooner or later. does the high schools there offers FSL? (French as Second Language) like here in we offer ESL for non English speakers… I’m going to be in high school soon and if my mom does divorce my dad, I’m going to Montpellier with my mom.
and does French people get along with other races besides their own? from what i heard from some of the Y!A folks is that they don’t get along with English, Americans… I’m American Chinese. do they get along with Asians, and other races? or they just have something against English and Americans? I’m just curious and want to get some answers out of it, but mostly about Montpellier, their culture, their environment and the high schools there.. anyone been there, lived there.. please tell me which high school is good and give me details.
Help will be appreciated.
Whats worth more? Dollar or French money?
I know nothing about schooling, being 30 years old and having finished with education for a while now, but it is a city I go to at least twice a year as I have family there.
It strikes me as quite a modern, forward looking city that hasn’t forgotten about its past for it still has a nice, historic centre. Housing can vary so much, like anywhere, and I won’t even guess something I don’t know anything about. If you speak French, then try the following site for finding a place : www.logic-immo.com and if you search by postcode, remember the code for Montpellier is 34000
In terms of schooling, France has a well developed state system organised by “academie” across the country. Each “academie” deals with schools in its area. I would imagine help is given with French if it’s not your first language. A site for the one for Montpellier and again, only in French:
http://www.ac-montpellier.fr/
I would guess that Montpellier attracts quite a lot of people from abroad. It also has at least more than one university, like any major French city, which will attract students from the local area, the rest of France and internationally (mainly but not exclusively the former French colonies).
As a people, the French are a very proud nation and don’t always like making the effort to speak English. I’d strongly advise learning some French if you don’t know any already. It’s different with the younger generation, though, like anywhere really. There’s this idea that the French are racist which leads on to saying that the far-right Front National regularly gets at least 10-20% of the vote in elections. A lot of the major cities have housing estates out of town in the suburbs which are in some cases no-go zones after dark. There are a lot of disaffected young people from ethnic minorities who do have a point when they say that no one will hire them which in turn leads to even more frustration and anger and ultimately violence. There has also been controversy surrounding the French police and the way they behave sometimes, such as stopping people from minorities on a whim and asking for ID (some people do feel picked upon and a routine ID control can degenerate into a full-blown protest).
It is a reality of French society but is only one that you will find if you actively go looking for it. If you live in a well-to-do area (I don’t mean rich, but one where the standard of living is reasonable) then you shouldn’t really have any problems. That said, it is stupid to say such generalisations about an entire people and when you get to know them, the French, like people anywhere, are perfectly reasonable and decent. You’ll find anyone who has had a reasonably good education quite helpful and approachable as with any country anywhere. You’ll get your bad ones but don’t you get them all over the world, to be fair?
Good luck with everything.