The brocante season starts this month! The French, as well as the English, love to spend hours on weekends browsing the various antique fairs and markets which take place in almost every village in the country. Searching for something unique and special can be lots of fun, but if you are equipped with the know-how to be able to select the most interesting fairs and markets which offer the best quality and the lowest prices, you will save considerable time. In several articles in this issue we present some valuable hints on how the system of brocantes and antique sales work, the many differences between each type of event, and some of the particular language used. And our “ Bricolage Section ” will give you some tips on how to restore that great piece of old furniture you have just found either at a brocante or an antique fair…

Negotiating with the dealers must be efficient and precise, and knowing how to say ‘no' is also essential! In the Scenario of the Month you will find the vocabulary to express the different negatives along with an explanation on how to construct the sentences, which can be very tricky if you don't have a clear understanding of the placement of the various elements of a negation in French.

We would also like to encourage our fellow expatriates living in France to become self-employed without the heavy administrative and financial constraints! The procedure known as “ Portage salarial” is an easy solution to self-employment in France ! This option will allow you to focus on commercialising the product you want to create or resell. Many of you have great ideas but are hesitant to start anything in France , and this can be the key to making that leap toward becoming a business owner!

Many English expats have come to France with the express purpose of starting a business, and in order to provide some real-life feed-back, Peta, who lives in the Normandy region and who has started her own B&B, has kindly accepted to share her experience. On this note, we welcome any newcomers to France who would be willing to submit to an interview. Just contact us by e-mail!

Finally, our readers section is filling up. We have selected just a few of them for publication and want to thank you for responding so positively to our constant efforts in striving to make this magazine interesting and useful to our readers! Your comments and your encouragement are driving us to continue to work on improving each issue, and in order to solicit even more feed-back from you, we will shortly be sending out a questionnaire by e-mail that will enable us to find out about your level of interest about the different themes in the magazine. We thank you in advance for replying and giving us as many details as possible! Again, by helping us, we can better help you!

Enjoy this issue….