Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité



Monday, I went for my medical appointment at the immigration office and my first of three orientations to life in France. It is really crazy to think I'm an immigrant. I really don't feel that way because I'm not settling here permanently, but I am now part of the “system”.  This is not something I considered at all, in moving to France. Yes I knew there would be paper work, but being required to attend compulsory days on integrating into French society did not even cross my mind. It makes me wonder as to what immigrants to Canada are exposed to in terms of residency formation?
In some ways I feel like very much an outsider to the whole process. Firstly, because permanent immigration to France has never been part of the plan and the permanent residency card was only viewed by us as one step towards being able to work and stay here for a while. Secondly, in the group I was with for the first part of my orientation, I was the only one from the western hemisphere. I felt a bit out of place because this process for me is not the huge life choice it is for those people around me, who have left their homes for what seems like a permanent change on most of their parts.  Most of the people in my group were from Algeria or Tunisia.
The whole process started with a pretty cheesy film on the equality, liberty and fraternity of the French Republic. It seemed to really stress the equality of the sexes and if I was not such a political junky, I would not have been quite so intent on watching. I am even more interested to find out what type of national values (...cough... propaganda) they are going to impress on me during the second part of the orientation which is civic education. It really is fascinating to see how people sell their own country and values to others.
The other part of the orientation involved two people coming in to explain the different parts of the orientation. Aside from a section on life in France, and civic education, I am looking forward to the section on employment and how foreign credentials are evaluated here. I already know that my teaching degree doesn’t count for much, but I’m interested to know how my other degrees and experience measure up. The presentations were all in French which was not a huge deal for me, but again I wondered if Canada being a nation composed of immigrants is a bit more sensitive to the issue of English or French as a second language.
The medical appointment, which I requested to be in English, for just simplicity sake was also for the most part in French with a smattering of English. The most intriguing part of the appointment was the chest x-ray. Outside the x-ray room was three cabins with two doors: one to the x-ray room and one to the waiting room/hallway. The large male x-ray technician asked you to enter the cabin and then asked you to remove your top. I was a bit confused at first because there was no smock in the little cabin. It’s been a long time since I had a chest x-ray in Canada, but I remember there being a smock! In a country of topless beaches, my thoughts about the immodesty of this seemed a bit Victorian.  While waiting in the little cabin you can hear everything that is happening in the x-ray room to the other patients. “Are you pregnant?” “Stand here.” This poor technician this is all he does all day. I can only guess how many chests he sees every day, and I can imagine that quite of few of them both male and female are not that appealing. In fact that thought leads to the fact that neither Keith nor myself saw him clean the board you had to press up against for the x-ray. The other intriguing fact that occurred to me was that in my group there were quite a few women wearing head scarves and there was no female technician around to my knowledge. Egalité, I guess?
The other interesting thing is that we were told to keep the x-rays because they might be needed at another doctor’s appointment. How cool is it that you get to keep your x-rays? Keith’s in fact looks like he has a piece of food or air bubble in his oesophagus.
Aside from the medical visit I had to sign a contract of integration, while Keith did not because he is already working. Basically I am promising to go to the orientations so that I know my rights as a resident of France. Subtext, they want me to start working so that I can contribute to the tax base so needed to run all the crazy bureaucracy here. The interesting part about this is that all of the people who spoke to us or ushered us from one room to another are part of this bureaucracy. Yet everyone was dressed like it was casual Friday. We have encountered this before and wonder at what level do you actual start wearing business casual or even business clothes because apparently jeans and an oversized striped white and red t-shirt is acceptable. I’m not sure what my thoughts are on this. I’m all for dressing comfortably, but it is quite different than the expectations of offices of North America.
Anyways, I will keep you posted on what other propaganda gets thrown my way.

1 comment:

  1. Tres Interresante! I'm guessing the chest x-ray has something to do with TB.

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