how expensive is living in france?

[Pierre-Henri]

avé la musique (http://www.dailymotion.com/search/inconnus/video/26498) !




French taxpayers' Rap. So good. Ca fait du bien d'en rire. Liberté, Egalité, Fiscalité !

[ilv2]

ilv2, you a student studying abroad? what school do you go to? just curious

i studied abroad in paris last year (spring 2005) and had season tickets for psg... also went to see lyon rock breme 7-2 (took the TGV down with my girl-friend, she wanted to come so she came along) in champions league... one of the best semester of my life! enjoy it man seriously!

that sounds awesome... i wish i got a season ticket, but i'm only there for a semester and i dunno how long the waiting list is.
as for school, im taking some courses at USC's france extension center and an intensive grammar/language course at the Sorbonne - what was your experience like.

seriously, i've only been here for 2 weeks but it seems like its been such a long time - hopefully it'll continue because it's been absolutely incredible so far (not on my wallet however :( )

[AllezParisAllezPSG]

that sounds awesome... i wish i got a season ticket, but i'm only there for a semester and i dunno how long the waiting list is.
as for school, im taking some courses at USC's france extension center and an intensive grammar/language course at the Sorbonne - what was your experience like.

seriously, i've only been here for 2 weeks but it seems like its been such a long time - hopefully it'll continue because it's been absolutely incredible so far (not on my wallet however :( )

yo man, you can get a half-season tickets, it might not be worth it anymore... literally, the first thing i did when i got to paris in mid-january was to go to the parc des princes and get my season tickets... so you get season tickets to all of the ligue 1 home games (i guess you save something like 5 or 10 euros a game which is nice) but you don't get any other games... so i had to pay extra (sat in bleu bas) to go see psg defeat bordeaux in the coupe de france (one of the best games ive been to!)... but seriously man, DEFINATELY!, DEFINATELY go to at least one game... go with a few pals or try to find some parisians that know the environment in the stadium and the team well, and you'll love it...

what's usc?? and where is it in paris? i go to nyu so i took 3 courses at the nyu center (it's on rue de passy, 5-10 min walk from the trocadero) and i also took one course at science po... i was there from january until mid august (school ended in mid-may but i did a "stage" at citroen for half the month of may, june and july...

haha yea things can get expensive in paris, just like here in NYC... where you been going out? around bastille, odeon? and where do you go to school in the states? enjoy yourself man, you'll realize after you're having the time of your life!

i also recommend, if you miss the states a little, go to Moosehead Bar, its literally a 2 min walk from the odeon station, you can look it up online... its a real awesome canadian bar but you got burgers there and the crowd there is all american...

[crashpo]

crashpo, it's interesting to read a view from china (i believe that's where you live) about france. it doesn't seem much different from a certain image that is peddled in the states by faux news, in the UK by the daily mail, and by a 100 other malevolent sources: basically that the old europe is a decrepit old place coming apart at the seams, with government, economy and society all going to hell in a handbasket.:eek:

i'm a born and bred american who's been living in france for 15 years, and i can tell you nothing is more ludicrous. sure there are problems here, just like in the US, or japan, or china. no worse, and for lots of things, much better; that's why my wife and i moved here when it came time to raise a family! it wasn't for honeymooning down by the seine, it was for health care, good schools, safer streets...

i think there's a hidden agenda behind the badmouthing of our social welfare system. it's so when americans complain about their ills, the government and their mouthpieces can say "but look at how horrible things are in france; you don't want that, now do you?":(

j'habit au canada maintenant. I know there are lot of countries offering free healthcare to their people but I think none of those well developed countries provide free medicine. Medicine is something that cause a lot of money because it takes billion of dollars to develop a new drug and get approved. I know French has a very good welfare system and healthcare system but I don't think French provide free medicine to their people right? I am not talking about seeing a doctor or staying in a hospital. Those stuff normally are covered but medicine is a different story.

[crashpo]

And where do you live? Just trying to guage how I should compare the French system to your Utopia.

Utopia? sorry utopia is no comparison to either the system of the country i am living in or the country I was born in.

[guignol]

what's usc?? ummm.. ever heard of the university of southern california ;)

[guignol]

j'habit au canada maintenant. I know there are lot of countries offering free healthcare to their people but I think none of those well developed countries provide free medicine. Medicine is something that cause a lot of money because it takes billion of dollars to develop a new drug and get approved. I know French has a very good welfare system and healthcare system but I don't think French provide free medicine to their people right? I am not talking about seeing a doctor or staying in a hospital. Those stuff normally are covered but medicine is a different story.actually no health care is absolutely free in france. for example, a doctor's visit is 20€; sécurité sociale picks up 80% i believe, meaning you pay 4€ if you don't have complementary insurance (mutuelle). if you do, there's still 1€ that you have to pay, which works as protection against serial hypochondriacs.

medecine is reimbursed at different percentages, mostly at 70%-80%, but sometimes only 30% or not at all based on how important it is considered to a treatment. the remainder will be all or partially picked up by your mutuelle using similar criteria. the elderly on low incomes get a card entitling them to 100% coverage even if they have no mutuelle.

as in all western countries, the system is under strain, but for demographic reasons, not because it's a bad system. having lived in lots of different places, i feel france has found a very good balance, the right level of socialization that has avoided the problems seen in sweden, the UK or the states.

[AllezParisAllezPSG]

ummm.. ever heard of the university of southern california ;)

haha yea i'm an idiot, i thought it was some school in paris that i had not heard of... good thinking :)

[guignol]

haha yea i'm an idiot, i thought it was some school in paris that i had not heard of... good thinking :)i wouldn't say that... a new yorker (total repect! ILNY!) can't be expected to know everything about bab-el-oued!

[ilv2]

yo man, you can get a half-season tickets, it might not be worth it anymore... literally, the first thing i did when i got to paris in mid-january was to go to the parc des princes and get my season tickets... so you get season tickets to all of the ligue 1 home games (i guess you save something like 5 or 10 euros a game which is nice) but you don't get any other games... so i had to pay extra (sat in bleu bas) to go see psg defeat bordeaux in the coupe de france (one of the best games ive been to!)... but seriously man, DEFINATELY!, DEFINATELY go to at least one game... go with a few pals or try to find some parisians that know the environment in the stadium and the team well, and you'll love it...

what's usc?? and where is it in paris? i go to nyu so i took 3 courses at the nyu center (it's on rue de passy, 5-10 min walk from the trocadero) and i also took one course at science po... i was there from january until mid august (school ended in mid-may but i did a "stage" at citroen for half the month of may, june and july...

haha yea things can get expensive in paris, just like here in NYC... where you been going out? around bastille, odeon? and where do you go to school in the states? enjoy yourself man, you'll realize after you're having the time of your life!

i also recommend, if you miss the states a little, go to Moosehead Bar, its literally a 2 min walk from the odeon station, you can look it up online... its a real awesome canadian bar but you got burgers there and the crowd there is all american...

we got some tickets yesterday for the lemans game in the H tribune Rouge which from the plan look like good ass seats and were pretty reasonable. Hopefully it'll have good attendance with both the boulogne and autueil stands packed but its lemans so...

yea usc = univ. s. california. ;)

actually, we've been trying to stay away from the american/english bars and looking at hole in the wall places only populated by french. We found a couple in the St.michel/sorbonne area, but have concentrated most of our outings on Rue Mouffetard. Funnily enough, the american bars serve the most alchoholic drinks so yea...