No matter where you’re coming from, a move to France will test you. Maybe not at first and maybe not in the same way that it tests others, but culture shock is real. Adapting to a new culture takes time, homesickness is no fun, language learning will take longer than you think, and you’re allowed to feel all the feelings. Some people might experience it a little more strongly than others, but as newcomers, adjusting to French culture is something we’ll all face.
If you push aside the social media highlight reel, you’ll definitely see that moving to France and thriving here takes time and it’s not for the faint of heart. That’s not to say France isn’t beautiful or worth it. It is, but it’s a real place too and the better prepared you are to deal with all the cultural differences, the better off you’ll be. Let’s talk about things that will test your patience when you move to France.
Honestly, there will be days that leave you defeated and even doubting your move. You’ll have days where you sit in your car after yet another stressful appointment at the prefecture and wonder if the move was a mistake. There will be times when the language barrier feels less like a fun challenge and more like the world is working against you. Maybe hardest of all, you’ll have days where you miss home in a way that catches you off guard. I’m writing this post for those days.
Not to scare you though, moving to France is still one of my best life decisions that I’ll be forever grateful for. I have zero regrets overall although sometimes when you’re in the thick of things, it can feel that way. That said, the hard parts deserve to be talked about too and I’ve made a point of doing that over the years here on the blog.
Why do I feel that way? Because when you’re going through something hard, knowing that someone else has been exactly where you are now and managed to come out on the other side can give you the push you need to persevere.
So here are 10 things that will test your patience when you move to France, and what nobody tells you about getting through them.
1. The bureaucracy will make you question everything you thought you knew about paperwork.
The French administration is in a category entirely of its own, and I say that with love. They adore dossiers, long wait times, almost comical operating hours, multiple copies, and document after document after document, all translated of course. Employees at the prefecture aren’t particularly known for being efficient or helpful either.
All the appointments you need as a foreigner can leave your head spinning. The rules are confusing, occasionally contradictory, and often delivered with an air of complete indifference to your situation even if a mistake is their fault, not yours.
Let me paint the picture (may or may not be a true story from the Angers prefecture back in November): You will be asked for a document. You will upload that document in advance. They will say they didn’t receive it although you have proof. So you will bring that document. You will be told you also need another document that wasn’t even on the website list of things you needed. That document will require a third document to obtain. Then you will go home and cry. Not even joking.
Add all of that onto the fact that when it’s your first time, you’re the new kid on the block and you’re dealing with all of that plus the fact that you miss home, are struggling with the language, and adapting to culture shock. IT. IS. A. LOT. Do NOT underestimate the impact all of this can have.
What nobody tells you is that getting through all the French bureaucracy hoops isn’t really about paperwork. It’s about finding your inner strength because what other choice do you have? Deep breaths…. Every foreigner who has built a life here has a story. It’s a rite of passage and you’ll get through it too.
45 Things I did WRONG when I moved to France >>
2. Opening a French bank account will feel like applying for a security clearance.
You need an address to open a bank account. You need a bank account to secure an address. This catch-22 will leave you wondering if this is all just a bad joke or some kind of sick test to sus out if you deserve to be here. I assure you that it’s no joke. I lived in a woman’s backyard shed when I first came here to teach English just so I could have an address. No lie.
My first attempt to open a French bank account went horribly wrong. I was discriminated against and told my French wasn’t good enough (despite having a work contract with a paycheck, a valid residency permit, and money to deposit). I was jetlagged and my low-intermediate level would have been just fine for my banking needs at the time: just going to the ATM once a week.
Imagine telling an immigrant in the US they can’t open a bank account because their English isn’t good enough. Holy lawsuit. Anyway, that afternoon I went home and cried. It was all too much.
Here’s how to open a bank account in France and some French banking idiosyncrasies to be aware of.
3. Finding housing will test you in unexpected ways.
I just told you I lived in a shed, albeit a converted one, but the ceiling was too low to stand upright with heels and I only had a mini fridge and a microwave. Oh, and a space heater for the winter. Trying to find a place to live can be hell.
The French rental market, particularly in cities like Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux, is genuinely competitive. Landlords typically want proof of income equal to three times the rent. As a newcomer, you may not have French pay slips yet. You may not have a French guarantor. You may have perfectly good income from another country that the system won’t recognize.
This part of the move is the one that breaks people down the most, and it’s okay to admit that. Give yourself grace here. It is hard. It is temporary. And the apartment you eventually find will feel like something you genuinely earned.
When France feels like home (and when it doesn’t) >>
4. The language barrier will humble you in ways you didn’t expect.
Learning French is a journey and you don’t go from barely being able to speak to being fluent overnight. Some days it’ll feel like one step forward, two steps back while other days, you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world.
This is how learning works. You aren’t a failure if you don’t understand something. Heck, sometimes I still don’t understand things. There are a LOT of words/expressions to learn. It’s OK!
Learning French isn’t something you acquire magically when one day something clicks. Instead, it’ss something you grow into, slowly, with a lot of uncomfortable moments along the way. Be patient with yourself here more than anywhere else. And above all, make comprehension your focus.
Along with that, the gap between textbook French and real French is real.
Nobody told you about verlan, which is French slang that reverses syllables (meuf for femme, etc). Nobody mentioned how fast people actually speak, how differently accents vary by region, and how overwhelming it can all feel. The French you learned in school is helpful on paper but the ramp up period for feeling confident with the French being spoken around you can feel daunting.
If you’re moving here, learning the language will only enrich your life in France, so keep at it. You’ve got this!
Why people move to France and DON’T learn French >>
5. You will miss home in ways that catch you completely off guard.
It won’t always be the big things. Sometimes it will be something absurdly small like a specific snack, a TV show, or a friend’s laugh that triggers you. Homesickness will swoop in and you never saw it coming like some kind of emotional ambush.
Although not fun, take solace in the fact that it’s one of the most universal experiences of living abroad. Feeling homesick doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It means you’re human and that you were comfortable where you were and right now you’re not. My advice is to let yourself feel it. Call the friend. Send the voice note. Let the tears flow.
Also, on a personal note, do whatever you can to make your new place feel like home. Paint the walls your favorite color, bring your favorite artwork and pictures of friends and family, and personalize whatever you need to so it feels like home. Make your space feel like you. It really helped me to feel like our new house was ours and not just a random space.
9 Biggest reasons to NOT move to France >>
6. Navigating the healthcare system
The French healthcare system is quite good overall but it works differently than healthcare in the US. Getting registered, understanding the carte vitale, figuring out your mutuelle, finding a médecin traitant* who is taking new patients (this literally took me 7 years and I don’t live in a rural area), and long wait times can feel really intimidating. Plus doing it in a second language (especially when you’re sick) adds a layer of vulnerability that is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.
Prepare yourself before you move. Ask foreigner Facebook groups for doctor recommendations. Check to see how long appointments take to get on Doctolib. Accept help when it’s offered. The system will make sense eventually, and when it does, you’ll be grateful to be a part of it.
7. Making deep friendships will take longer than you expected.
The French can be warm, interesting, and wonderful (like people anywhere), but they are not, as a general rule, quick to open up. Friendships in France tend to form slowly, built on repeated encounters and shared experiences over time rather than the fast familiarity that might feel more natural if you come from somewhere like the United States.
This can feel lonely in the early months, and that loneliness deserves to be acknowledged rather than ignored. Seek out expat communities not as a replacement for French friendships but as a bridge, people who understand exactly what this period in your life feels like. The deeper friendships will come. They will just arrive on French time. 😉
8. Things in your home will break, and getting them fixed will take a very long time.
The hot water stops working. The landlord is contacted. A tradesperson is called. An appointment is made for three weeks from now. This is not an emergency to anyone except you, so you suck it up and get used to cold showers.
France does not share your urgency around home repairs, and this will test you, particularly in in the summer when everyone is en vacances.
We had a roof leak that was destroying our ceiling and, I kid you not, between dealing with the insurance and eventually getting someone to come diagnose the issue and then repair it and repaint everything took just over two years from start to finish. Yes, I said two YEARS, not a typo.
I have a dozen stories like this. Not all with my roof, thank goodness, but you get the idea. It’s commonplace to not hear back from tradespeople even after leaving several messages, especially if it’s for a small job. They have too much work as it is so you won’t always get a callback unless it’s a bigger company with employees who manage the inbox.
What this has taught me is that I’m more resourceful than I realized and that you can learn to be patient… because there’s no alternative.
Why I would NOT retire in France >>
9. Slow Sundays take some getting used to
Almost everything is closed, especially in small-town France. This is not an exaggeration. On Sundays, the supermarket, the pharmacy, the bank, and most shops are closed. Sometimes supermarkets are open until noon or 1 p.m, but in tiny towns, forget shopping on Sundays. If you come from a country where everything is open 24/7, your first couple of months here will feel a bit weird and you’ll have to reorganize your week if you like to bang out errands on Sunday mornings.
After a while though, you just roll with it. You stop trying to get things done on Sundays and do other things. You take a walk. You read. You cook something or clean your house. The only thing to do is embrace it and truth be told, I don’t miss my old ways at all.
10. There will be a moment (or moments) when you seriously consider going home.
It’s normal. In times of stress or after a particularly distressing incident, you just crash out and seriously consider your life choices. Maybe once. Maybe several times. Maybe you start getting this nagging feeling you just can’t shake that you need to go home.
My advice is to take a deep breath and sit with it before you act on it. Call someone who knew you before France and also knows who you’re becoming. Remind yourself why you came and force yourself to see the big picture once you’ve calmed down a bit. On most days, even the hard ones, I’m 99% OK with my choice to move here.
You’ll learn that pushing through the tough times will teach you that what you find on the other side isn’t something you could have found any other way. As a foreigner abroad, you have to earn everything you get and none of that comes without the hard days. It’s all worth it in the end, I promise you that.
***
If you’re in the middle of some of the things I talked above, you know, the hard, unglamorous, nobody-told-me-about-this part kind of stuff, I want you to know that you are not alone. You are not doing it wrong. Things get better and you’ll come out stronger on the other side. I’m proof.
Tell me below what part of your move was hardest. Your honesty might be exactly what someone else needs to read today.
I don’t have any hardship stories. Belgium, where I live, is so similar to France in many ways. Even though the northern part is technically part of the Germanic world, it’s still a Burgundian lifestyle and so more in tune with France. Love the photo of you in your pyjamas enjoying a croissant with strawberry “confiture” and a good cup of coffee. What else does one need to feel happy and peaceful.
Hmm…I definitely remember being yelled at by a French delivery person for not responding to the door fast enough. He spent 10 minutes holding my package hostage while telling me all the reasons why I was making him late on his rounds. He whined, he yelled, he complained, and he hand-gestured throughout the tirade. I did not have the French language level to respond to him (which in English, I would have said, “you’re rude and you’re wasting my time. I’m taking my package and you’re leaving.”) Instead, I didn’t say much of anything because I just didn’t have the language skills! Ugh, that was almost 2 years ago and it still bothers me! I admit that I won’t answer the door for deliveries since that experience. I have packages delivered to a “point relais” or, where necessary, I ask my husband to accept the delivery in-person. Yep, I fully lean into my cowardly lion approach! 🙂
Also, for some reason, struggling with my French in a boulangerie is actually worse than in many other places. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because it’s a place where people are generally “in and out” and I feel time-pressured. It’s like ordering in a deli or bodega in NYC – get in, order, get out. Under pressure in a boulangerie, I always inevitably sound like a confused tourist. And I’m not! I live here! But always, always, I see the people in line looking at me and (I’m sure!) thinking, “ugh, another dopey tourist who can’t speak French properly.”
And side note – when I was at the prefecture for my carte de séjour pick-up, the officer addressed only my husband about my card and all of the ancillary details, once he realized that my husband was French. When he had to address me, he spoke in s-l-o-w, exaggerated English. I had a brief fanstasy of saying “what?” repeatedly and with a vacant expression, just to enjoy watching him get frustrated. But I just endured the ridiculousness until we left. It was funny, absurd, and surreal all at the same time!