Moving to France and adapting to life in Lyon
Alors, depuis quelques semaines etudiant le français, c’est le temps pour un post à la française.
J’essaye d’apprendre les leçons de français chaque jour mais j’ai trouvé que le grammaire est vraiment difficile. Il y a beaucoup de choses d’apprendre et j’ai oublié tant de vocabulaire.
J’espere que quand je vais en France je vais apprendre plus vite. Euronews a dit que ils me trouveront un prof de français.
Je vais demander à Cath de corriger mes exercices.
Now that I have a start date I need to sort out a visa. Since we left the EU I cannot just go to France and start a job as I did when I was 21 and went to work in a Paris supermarket (Franprix, Rue de l’eglise, 15th arrondisement, if you are interested). This time I need a visa.
Euronews’ international HR department talked me through the process – complete an online form and then book an appointment at the embassy – or the service that visa applications are outsourced to.
I was warned that I would need my original birth certificate, my university degree certificate, original marriage certificate – and that my wife Cath would need all of these things too. Oh yes, and we would need to get them translated into French!
Translate a birth certificate into French! Really? How much translating does that involve? Well actually – it turns out you don’t need to translate an English birth certificate. Phew. That’s one less thing.
Online forms filled in, it’s then time to book our appointment at the visa office. First available appointment is 19 January – only a week-and-a-half before I need to go! Hope I haven’t made any mistakes on those forms!
So with the deal done, there are a lot of things to think about and organise. Renting out the house, getting a visa, the actual move and of course learning French.
To that end I have reacquainted myself with Duolingo – doing as many lessons as I can each day. I discovered since I last used Duolingo they have a lot of podcasts that you can listen to.
The stories are really interesting and I have enjoyed listening to them. Le magicien des baguettes is a lovely tale.
I really hope when I get to Euronews I have beaucoup de collegues Indiens ou Tunisiens – as that seems to be a regular feature of my Duolingo lessons so far. Hopefully none of them are paresseux.
Having returned to the UK and discussed the offer from Euronews – along with a free flat to live in while we work out what do we our house and where to live in Lyon – today I accepted the offer. I told the headhunter when she rang me to check in with how the trip to Lyon had gone.
The next day I spoke to the HR director and told him the decision had been quite easy in the end – they made me feel very wanted.
I was then sent my contract to sign. It has to be in French, because of French law – but fortunately they included an English translation.
The deal is done and I have a start date – 1 February 2022.
On Monday 15 November, my wife Cath and I flew out to Lyon to see what we thought of the city – and whether we would be happy to relocate there.
I had been through a remote interview process and this was the final stage of the recruitment process – meet Euronews’ management team and experience Lyon for real. Could it become our new home?
The trip started with a lovely meal at L’Institution and then a day of meetings while Cath toured Lyon.
We met up for lunch and Cath’s first impressions of Lyon were positive. We walked around the beautiful old town before I had to head back for more meetings.
At the end of a long day, the CEO treated us to dinner at another restaurant – Selsius. It was delicious and I think our minds were made up about the move.
The one sour note were my attempts to speak French. I found it difficult but when the taxi driver asked me if I had heard a noise I was able to dig into my recent Duolingo lessons to say: Je n’ai rien entendu. I was happy with that.
On 1 February 2022, I am moving to Lyon, France to take up a role at Euronews. I will be trying to learn French, immerse myself in a new city and way of life and adapt to a new multi-cultural workplace after many years working at the BBC. I will try to document the sucesses and failures here.
Thrown to (the) Lyon 