higher standard in France.<\/a> Food, she says, is also cheaper and fresher in France than in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\nAna\u00efs\u2019s husband is also French, so living in France would mean being closer to both sets of grandparents, too. And in France, children start school at the age of three, compared to the age of four in the UK, relieving French parents of a year of nursery fees.<\/p>\n
But despite all these benefits, Ana\u00efs, who has been living in the UK since 2015, says London is where she is choosing to raise her family because of its vibrance, cultural diversity and the way the city embraces different personalities and lifestyles.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnically, the very first time I came to the UK was 16 years ago, when I was around 17 for a one-month internship, and I just fell in love with London. I had been to Paris multiple times but London felt completely different. <\/p>\n
\u201cLondon is just iconic with its double decker red buses and places like Piccadilly Circus. You\u2019ve got the buzz of the city but at the same time, everybody is doing their own thing \u2013 they \u2018keep calm and carry on\u2019,\u201d Anais said. <\/p>\n
\u201cParis, and France in general, feels a lot more judgmental. If I\u2019m on the Metro in Paris and my son starts crying, we will get stares, whereas in London, it doesn\u2019t matter. I also feel like in London, you can be whatever you fancy. There is that feeling of \u2018the sky is the limit\u2019 that I don\u2019t think you get anywhere else. Living here just feels natural \u2013 we feel the friction every time we go back to France.\u201d<\/p>\n
London was once famous for being France\u2019s \u201csixth biggest city\u201d, due to the large population of French expats living in the UK capital. But the numbers have been declining since Brexit came into effect in 2020, making Ana\u00efs and her husband more of a rarity these days, with the number of French people living in the UK declining by over 40,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
France might offer Ana\u00efs and her family a more financially favourable lifestyle, but she believes that embedding a culturally open mindset in her children is priceless.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery month we are on a budget because it is a financial investment and sacrifice. But the UK\u2019s multiculturalism beats that sacrifice. We would be less exposed to that if we\u2019d stayed in France. We do visit up to eight times a year, so we have the best of both worlds,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Another reason Ana\u00efs feels her young family is thriving in the UK is the work-life balance they have established. Her husband\u2019s company operates on a four-day week, and she runs her own business flexibly and remotely, as a women\u2019s careers coach at HerCode.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This means that despite only being able to afford three days a week of childcare in London, the couple aren\u2019t juggling to cover the other two days, as they are able to take care of their son for a day a week each. <\/p>\n
In France, even though a maximum 35 hour work week is enshrined in labour laws, a four-day work week has been less widely adopted there than in the UK.<\/p>\n
Ana\u00efs adds that when they receive their 30 hours free childcare funding in September, her son will attend a fourth day of nursery for essentially no extra cost. She will move her non-working day to Friday, which her husband will continue to have free, so the family will enjoy a three-day weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m raising a kid completely 50 per cent with my husband \u2013 he is equally as committed, and we\u2019re really raising our son together, which is so important to us,\u201d says Ana\u00efs.<\/p>\n
Healthcare does weigh heavily on Ana\u00efs\u2019s mind, and for that reason, she and her husband have agreed that their senior years may actually be best spent in France.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be worried about growing old over here, especially if one of us developed a condition or complications with ageing,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to grow old by the sea, near my home town in Brittany.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ana\u00efs Comot wants to bring her child up in London, despite childcare being much cheaper in France Back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[1019,2000,299,36,1258],"class_list":{"0":"post-266071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-childcare","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-nurseries"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114855503730009159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}