Things are going to shit in France. All of the schools where I work are losing students in large numbers because of stupid government decisions, I am losing work and very few people care about it apart from the end users – students and teachers.

France has always been heavily over-bureaucrated, something I may have mentioned before; my favourite statistic is that whilst 11% of the UK workforce is employed by the Government there, in France it’s 24%. These numbers may be out of date now, but the principle holds – France is an expensive place to run. Also: Too Good To Check (old tabloid journalist saying).

This is now biting them in the ass; because there is No Money the government has reduced the bonus companies received for employing apprentices drastically, in some cases from €8 000 to €1 000. Other benefits have also disappeared for employers, so many are no longer taking on apprentices, interns and other starter-type employees.

One school where I work has cancelled 40% of its courses; another has reduced face-to-face teaching hours by 25%, making students do the extra hours in their own time online; and a third won’t be opening until next October because the bureaucratic hassles involved mean that they won’t have their paperwork finished by January as they’d hoped, losing me five whole days work; and a fourth has just cancelled an entire course because there were only two students left taking it. This means that I and the other seven teachers who taught these students have each lost six whole days of work between now and the end of the academic year, but that’s not the worst thing. “Where are the students going to go to finish their course?” I asked the director. She shrugged. “I don’t know.” (*1)

Luckily, she and the other administrators in the school – it’s owned by a local big city’s Chamber of Commerce – are all going to keep their jobs and they are, even as you read this, diligently marketing the school to students for the next academic year. Well, they will as soon as their Christmas holidays are over. And this is the same school that begged and begged me to go and work for them when I really didn’t want to, making me shoe-horn classes into impossible slots and undertake a 100 km round trip to get there.

It is a very short-sighted attitude, as Any Fule Kno. Get in some AI now to take over those apprentice jobs and only hire people with five years experience is the current mantra, in teaching like everywhere else. Except, of course, soon no one will have five years experience, or even one year in work. Schools cutting teaching hours where their reputation for top graduates matters will find companies complaining that, all of a sudden, the students from that school can’t speak English any more, for example. You can write your own consequences here because they’re obvious to anyone wearing spectacles.

I learned a long time ago from French friends that the first, and indeed sometimes only, job of bureaucrats is to keep their own job. This is why so many interactions with them are completely stupid, even useless. They will email back an Excel spreadsheet which needs a date changing instead of doing it themselves; they will return your file because it is missing a piece of paper – a piece of paper they never asked you for in the first place – sometimes even asking for a piece of paper which simply doesn’t exist; they will demand something urgently and then auto-reply that they’re now on holiday until next year.

France is facing a massive financial crisis, the peasants are revolting, the Government can barely govern, everyone hates the President and this all feeds into the second national sport, after bureaucratising: Moaning. Everyone moans, no one does anything about it. Ever.

For example, when he was elected for the first time in 2017 Macron promised an extra €300 million or so for autistic children. Where did that money go? Who knows. France has had four Autism Plans since 2005, the last finishing in 2022. Since then? Probably has an important piece of paper missing from its folder. But no one who matters is interested in anything beyond the headlines acclaiming the initiative – Brigitte Macron I’m giving you the Paddington Stare – so nothing happens except people continue suffering.

On a personal level it puts me in a difficult position where I will barely have enough work to sustain my opulent lifestyle next year. So, if you hear of anything, do let me know. Cheers.

*1 – Two administrators came to explain to the 3rd year class I was teaching yesterday why the first year of their course was being abandoned. Two of them. To explain why they didn’t have the money available to teach two students. Irony is alive and well and living in French schools.

I moan about my students because it’s funny. Well, I think it’s funny and that’s what counts, n’est-ce pas?

Mostly, of course, they’re fine. Some are even good. One or two are excellent. The interesting ones are stupid, lazy, ignorant and make good copy. If it bleeds it leads; if they’re stupid, something that rhymes with stupid that means ‘Posting it to my socials’.

And you’re right, I should get around to compiling all their stupidities into a book. I will do one day, promise. I may even have a Scrivener project about that, in fact, come to think of it. Must have a look one day.

A fairly common entrant in my ‘Good grief’ postings are school administrations. This week one surpassed themselves – not easy – by telling me that they hadn’t paid my most recent bill because I haven’t sent them back a piece of paper they need from me. It is, apparently, irrelevant, that they have never sent me this piece of paper and that, in fact, they haven’t even told me what the piece of paper might be (I have lots of pieces of paper that they need, including some they don’t even know they need). This is a regular theme with school administrations who, I suspect – know, indeed – are operating with out-of-date HR manuals from 2020 which have different lists of ‘Pieces of paper you need to collect from Chris Ward’ than the current list of bits of paper they actually need from me. I am much more up to date on this sort of stuff than they are, but then I can’t even pretend to their levels of vast incompetence. They all have Masters degrees in incompetence.

Another spiffing example of stupidity came at the end of last month. I can’t send this particular school a bill until the end of the month, but they have to receive my bill before the end of the month or it will take two months to pay it. Sorry, they say, Law Of Physics, Impossible To Pay A Bill If It Arrives After The End Of The Month. So I had a class on the last day of the month and sent it to them at 16:30 on the day of that last class. They sent it back to me the next Monday saying that they could not accept bills sent before the end of the class, which officially finished at 17:00. And they all go home at 17:00 so, they confirmed, they wouldn’t see the bill until the Monday morning by which time it would be too late for payment that month and so I’d have to wait two months for it to be paid. I shouted at them a lot about this, including to their boss, and they’ve – reluctantly and exceptionally, just this once you understand as a special favour and not at all because we’re stupid – agreed to pay it this month. Well, it’s now the end of the month and the money hasn’t arrived. Of course.

A couple of weeks ago I was sent a job advert for a position as a chef de partie in a nice restaurant in the Cotswolds. Accommodation, food, laundry all included and a salary above what I earn at the moment. I could do the job easily – I did it for five years after all, although that was 15 years ago now – and I have to confess that I’m tempted. And I’ve also been getting lots of ads on my podcast feed trying to persuade me to become a teacher in England, again for more money than I’m earning now.

And then I walked on the beach this morning and watched the sun rise and decided to stay.

Sunrise over Carnon harbour, November 2025

The past five and a half years have been a long history of moving on; from marriage, from living in a family, from jobs I didn’t like, from people I don’t appreciate.

Next month comes one of the final steps in that process: Leaving the flat which became my haven in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid confinements and my new life as a single person.

I rented the flat in Moulezan just because it was what was available when I needed it. In many ways it was perfect: two bedrooms, sitting room, not too big but just big enough, next to the boulangerie and in the village where the girls went to school. There’s a great general store/cafe/bistro, the post office and enough visiting tradespeople to make it possible to live there without driving anywhere.

I had to drive, though, to go to work. At first that was fine, all in Nimes and about half an hour away. But then the conditions in that one school in Nimes became so bad and the incompetence of the school’s director so egregious that I had to leave, and then most of my work was in Montpellier with just one day a week in Nimes. That one day was quite fortuitous at the start since it was all day on Mondays. The pay was OK and it suited our family needs to take Scarlett to Nimes every Monday morning to spend the week boarding at her lycée.

But she was as dissatisfied with her lycée by the end of the year as I was with teaching in that last school in Nimes, and we both moved on; she’s now in England and I taught only in Montpellier. Although cuts in classes in all my schools mean that I’ve now, very reluctantly, started teaching for half a day a week in Nimes again. The school is fine but I don’t enjoy the hundred kilometre round-trip every week. Twice a week sometimes, in fact. But that’s the way things go when you’re the only one paying the nearly one thousand euros a month to support your daughter in England – you have to work, no choice.

The Moulezan flat reverts to its owner in three weeks and I’m gradually emptying it out. Much of the furniture is going to someone else or Emmaus; the flat in Palavas is pretty well furnished so, apart from a desk, some carpets, a few bookshelves and a bin, nothing is coming here.

The added complication to my new life is that I can’t rent the flat here in Palavas all year round, I have to move out at the end of June so that it can be rented out for more per week than I pay for a month during the winter. So, my books, shelves and other sundries will go into storage for the summer before coming out again for the winter.

And I know that I would hate it here in the summer anyway. The population of Palavas grows from around 6 000 in the winter to over 100 000 in the summer if you count all the day visitors, and the beach which is a few paces behind me at the moment will be wall-to-wall screaming children. Not for me.

So we’re going to travel this summer, stay with friends, do the tourist stuff up in the hopefully cooler north of Europe. If you find a stranger sleeping on your sofa, that’ll be me.

I’ve also re-launched my quest to become a French citizen. Now that other administrative nonsense has died down – don’t get me started on why two adjacent French Départments have apparently never heard of each other when it comes to taking a child to school because that takes at least two months and includes lots of ‘Well you can’t get there from here’ clichés – I find I now have the mental energy and will to attack another French bureaucracy. It will, I’m sure, drive me nuts but, this time, it’s not strictly essential. But I’m going to do it because of the mutterings of the far-right (sorry, ‘The Centre’) about ‘Sending the immugrunts home’. They are incapable of differentiating, legally, between me and the people of colour they think are taking their jobs (no one wants to do your job, Daryl, not even you) and I fear that in any future pogrom people like me who have the French equivalent of Settled Status would be caught up in the mayhem and be obligated to do lots of things we don’t want to, including going home. Wherever that’s supposed to be.

Accepting and becoming, to some extent, comfortable with one’s past is a big part of growing up, especially at my age. I can’t change any of the things I’ve done in the past but I can move on and do things that I want to do now. I’ve said more than once that this is what I now do – I do what I want within the limits of the bounds of freedom available to me – and I’m going to go on doing that.

My mental health is better than it’s been for decades. Probably better than it’s ever been, in fact, and for that I’m grateful to those who’ve helped me along the way. Those who’ve actively worked against me don’t even know who they are and have their own troubles, and I’m glad that they’re no longer mine.

Look after yourselves, people, and look after those you love.

Sunset from Carnon harbour looking towards my flat, November 22 2025.

It was a very happy birthday indeed this year with lots of friends and family in Paris for a few days, see photos below.

We variously visited Notre Dame – absolutely spectacular- the Pantheon, the flea markets at St Ouen, The Niki de Saint Phalle/Jean Tinguely/Pontus Hulten exhibition, the Apple Store and, of course, that splendid dinner at Chez Paul (I had the calf’s liver in raspberry vinegar, really spectacular). And then pancakes on Sunday morning at Le Paradis des Fruits where we lingered for quite a while.

Thankyou to everyone who came and to everyone who bought me a present, you are all very kind and I love you all dearly.

See you all on Saturday, October 26 2030 for my 70th.

Ten thousand days ago today I arrived in France. Not for the first time but the last. Since then all my journeys have started and finished here.

On July 1 1998 I drove from our house in Peckham to Pompignan with a car full of stuff and a dog to begin a new life.

It was the beginning of a new life, one which, at the time, I fully intended to continue – I never intended to return to England; others told me – us – how brave we were, how they could never do such a thing, how – well, etc., etc., etc. To me it seemed to be a very natural thing and I’ve never, ever thought seriously of moving back to England once during those 10 000 days.

1998 was two wives and two children ago, some of whom I love and don’t regret more than others; which is which is fairly obvious. Now, I have two great daughters who make me proud enough to burst; I get to live on the beach in the South of France; and I have a job which, despite it being funny to moan about, I find interesting and fulfilling. And I’m 50 000 words into my novel.

What will the next 10 000 days bring? Probably the end of me but also, with the luck that’s followed me over the past 27+ years, lots of fun too. I have put the bad days behind me and I now know how to easily avoid them. My health, whilst not as robust as it should be, is better than it has been at any time in the past getting-on-for three decades. In particular my mental health is way, way better than at any point in my now nearly 65 years.

Next week we’re going to Paris to celebrate my 65th birthday – do come if you can, 19:30 on Saturday 25th Chez Paul. I’ll be the one drinking the Burgundy and eating the duck.

Here’s to the next few thousand days. Cheers.

** This post has been corrected, replacing an earlier version which falsely claimed that I arrived in France 17000 days ago. In fact, I arrived in France 10000 days ago. I, my Editorial Board, my Board of Governors and all my mentors sincerely regret the error. Also it’ll be 10 000 days on November 15, not yesterday. We regret this error, too, and blame my 5th form maths teacher, Isky ‘Rat’ Kerr, who was a complete asshole who not only hated me but used to beat me with an old gym shoe. True story. It’s his fault I can’t count.

For the past two years I’ve been working in and around Montpellier, rather than exclusively in Nimes. 15 years ago when I started teaching I drove all over the place, teaching individuals in their homes and then in their workplaces. In 2013 I added teaching at Vatel which soon became my sole employer, and that lasted until 2022. By then I was working there and at one other school in Nimes, and I hated both of my jobs; Vatel because the management was excruciatingly bad, the other school because the students were just appalling human beings.

I’ve also been working four days a week for the past two years as well as living half my time in a seaside apartment in Palavas; two weeks beside the sea, two weeks in the countryside in Moulezan. I’ve lived in Moulezan since 2019, the last five of them in my small apartment next to the boulangerie. This format has done wonders for my mental health and I feel much better in my head than I have done for a decade or more. Getting divorced helped a lot with that, too, it has to be said.

This summer is the last I will spend in Moulezan, though; this autumn I’m moving into a flat in Palavas and will be leaving the croissant-adjacent one for good. The landlord is selling and, while I could keep renting it, there’s no need. The only reason I’ve kept the apartment here is because Roxanne went to the Montessori collège in the village and in September she will be going to the Lycée Agricole in Meynes, east of Nimes, to study animal husbandry. And she’ll be going as a boarding student, sleeping there during the week and spending weekends either with me or with her mother. So, two weekends per month she’ll come to me in Palavas. Scarlett, meanwhile, returns to England at the end of August to continue her art studies at Bedford College.

So, I get to live the beach life in my new apartment which is, literally, on the beach; step out through my sliding doors onto my terrace, turn left, walk 10 metres alongside my flat, open the little gate and onto the beach. I can feel it doing me good already. The downside to this is that I can only rent the apartment from September to June; then it’s rented out to the beach lifeguards of the Gendarmerie Nationale who patrol the beach at Palavas, so I’ll have to do something else for the two months of the summer.

This year, summer has been three weeks of not doing much at all; we went to Paris for a few days in June to see the Hockney exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (so good, I’m taking Scarlett there before she returns to England) and Le Barbier de Seville at the Opéra National (wow!). And, of course, to eat at Le Thoumieux and Chez Paul.

I’ve been writing, quite a lot in fact, of Seconds with help from The Novelry. It’s coming on. Roxanne and I went to Paris for a couple of days last week to see the Disney 100 exhibition which we both enjoyed immensely; and to visit Paris’s original Cat Café. The Cat Café exists (and charges €5 per visit) to please cat fans, including Roxanne who enjoyed it. I did not appreciate the appalling service and very mediocre food (clumsy, over-reheated – but then served cold! – goat cheese and tomato tart anyone?). Not recommended unless you’re a major cat fan who needs a feline fix.

The new school year is approaching and I will continue teaching in the same places as before as well as adding a couple of new ones. I learned my lesson while at Vatel – do NOT put all your wage-earning eggs in one crappy basket. In fact I’m up to six now, spread out more or less evenly but with a few days here and there venturing to Nimes and Perpignan. We’ll see how that goes. I am still, mostly, not working on Fridays and will still be teaching, on average, less than 20 hours a week, which is good for my physical and mental health.

But September to Christmas is full and will be hard. I spent most of June sleeping when I wasn’t still teaching, and have one last class this Friday before officially finishing for the summer holidays. I already have one school in my sights as the next to be fired and next year’s plan will be to not work on Mondays as well as Fridays. Here’s hoping.

Media this month

Draw a fish – go on, see how bad you are at drawing (or how good if you’re Scarlett).

BBC Proms – The BBC is continuing the enshittification of all nice things by withdrawing access to the BBC sounds app from anyone who dares to live abroad, rather than introduce the subscription service those of us who dare to leave its shores have been asking for for many years. You can still listen to BBC radio live via a slightly different page, but you are no longer allowed access to the catch-up service which was so useful.

Smart DNS proxy – On an unrelated note, VPN services are popular with those who aspire to listen to, say, the BBC whilst daring to live in foreign parts. I find them clumsy and slow at best, and the good ones are expensive. Do NOT use a free one! Ever! Smart DNS proxy does the same job as a VPN but without all the overhead of sending all your traffic via a 3rd party, costs the same and is about as easy/difficult to set up.

Murderbot (the books) – Martha Wells is a great writer and her Murderbot is a very relatable character. If you hate people but feel obliged to like them all in a wonderful non-dystopian but non-idyllic future, this is for you.

Murderbot (the TV series) – Yet another reason to get an Apple TV+ subscription. The first season (book 1) is available now, the second season (book two) will be out next year. If you’re one of my children you will be watching this next week.

No is working very well for me these days.

No, I won’t conduct oral exam in a 1.5m x 3m box room with no functioning air conditioning or opening windows. (They found me an air conditioned office after I spent an hour sitting in the corridor reading my book).

No I won’t work for you (after they kept me waiting for nearly a month to tell me whether or not I could work for them in the first place).

No, I won’t work for YOU at all (because your classrooms are windowless, air-conditioning free boxes jammed with smelly computing students and you pay 25% less than everyone else who wants to employ me).

I’ve mentioned before that ‘No’ is my word of the year, my theme for 2023, a real departure for me since I was always brought up to say ‘Yes’ and do whatever it takes to please others, no matter who they are or what they want. No is a hard word to say for me, and I’m pleasantly surprised and pleased that it’s getting easier to say. And I’m particularly pleased with the results: people do not instantly hate me, or if they do they hide it well, and I get what I want. And they get what they want too, ultimately, I guess.

The French have a phrase they use, a very passive-aggressive phrase designed to have the same effect as the English phrase “According to our records….” The French say “Sauf erreur de notre part….” – Excepting an error on our part, or Unless we’ve made a mistake….

I got a ‘Sauf erreur’ email on Monday. Which was a repeat of the email sent last Friday, Thursday, Tuesday and the Friday before that. It was from an intern working for the administration department of a school where I’ll start work on September 21, a little over 2 months after the first message was sent. I hadn’t seen the first four messages because they were sent to my Work email address. The fifth I saw because she’d sent it not only to my work address but also to my private, personal email address. Which annoyed me.

“No, you haven’t made a mistake,” I replied. “You haven’t received a reply from me because I haven’t sent one. I haven’t sent a reply because I’m on holiday. As you will know from the automatic replies sent to your first four emails to my work email address. My deepest, humblest, most sarcastic apologies for not replying earlier but I only have my phone with me and it’s a little difficult do read and reply to and fill in the five Word, Excel and PDF documents you sent on a phone. I’ll try to do better once I get home to my computer.”

“No need to apologise,” she replied. “I was just worried because I didn’t get a reply from you and thought there might be a problem.”

She hadn’t received my auto reply to her July 19 email, she said. Although she had received it to the subsequent 3 messages, the reply explaining that I’m on holiday and won’t reply until I get back to work.

I haven’t replied to her since.

I also haven’t replied to the student who contacted me via his school’s administration to say that, after maturely considering the marks I gave her/him in his exams two months ago, s/he’s not happy with them. I won’t be replying to her/him either. I’m not happy with his marks either, they were rubbish, but that is very much her/his problem, not mine.

And now I find this article in my Drafts folder, having forgotten about it for two years. I’m pleased to say that NO is still a favourite word, favourite because it’s taken me away from another school where I intensely disliked working, despite the lovely administration; students, you can treat me like an asshole for only so long before I give up on you. I give you the tools but I can’t make you pick them up and use them. If you think the bit of paper you get at the end of two years means you’re automatically entitled to a job, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.