Would you live in Montpellier?

I keep meaning to write about our bike trip to Italy but I haven't got round to sorting out the photos yet (yeah yeah I know...) so it'll have to wait.

Instead I'll tell you about our bike trip around Montpellier looking at the different quartiers. My DB is half-heartedly thinking about buying an apartment to live in but, despite living here for about six years, knows nothing about the city.

La Paillade (a priority security zone...)

Montpellier has been a Socialist city for the last forty years, and the Socialists have managed to wreck what used to be an attractive place. They've implemented social mixing with such zealousness that it is impossible to find a quartier that does not have its share of dreary 70s flats, cheap rugs and sheets airing out of windows and car carcasses in parking lots.

When I first came to Montpellier, there were hardly any gated apartment communities. Now, most are; the only ones not are the tattier blocks of social housing (HLM). Obviously all this wonderful social mixing has led to an increase in feelings of insecurity, backed by statistics of increasing crime (especially burglary and vols à l'arraché -'grab theft'), and every man and his dog is locking himself away. Some of the remaining houses even have bars on every window, top and bottom. Must be peaceful living in prison...

One estate agent told us that a whopping 80% of apartments are rented (lots of students) and only 20% are owner-occupied. Is this the result of all those enticing tax-deductible programmes that various governments have implemented over the years to encourage the buy-to-let market? Yet, there is a shortage of housing, especially social housing.

I read that ten people arrive in Montpellier every day. However, new building programmes are collapsing and 55% of those that have planning permission are on hold because of the crisis. When building promoters start a building project, the government imposes 20% social housing into the total number of residences. So, if they build a block of 100 flats, 20 of them have to be HLM. In Montpellier, the number of HLM is 30.

So who pays?  During the elections, I learned that it is private buyers who finance the HLM. They pay more for their square metres to cover the cost of the HLM. It may not be a coincidence, in that case, that buying a place to live is more expensive in Montpellier than elsewhere. You get fewer square metres for your money on average (35.3m² to 38.2m² in new-builds) than in the top ten French towns.

After visiting Celleneuve, La Chamberte, Mas Drevon, Croix d'Argent, Estanove, Alco and La Martelle, my DB decided that he does not want to live in Montpellier itself. High prices, high insecurity, noise and traffic don't make it an appealing idea.

Where I live, outside the city, we do not lock ourselves away behind solid metal barriers, the population is homogeneous and it's a little corner of peaceful paradise. But I also pay an arm and a leg on rent, and will continue to do so until my boys leave home. Peace and quiet comes at a price unfortunately.

Crime and Punishment

I walked in through the front door from a foray into Carrouf and found my youngest extremely upset. It transpired that his telephone had been snatched out of his hands as he walked along the road and thrown on the floor. A gratuitous act of vandalism. The phone is, unsurprisingly, broken.

The vandal was a boy of about my son's age, unknown to my son, so not from the village, and no prizes for guessing his ethnic origin. The kid ran off, but he picked the wrong target because my son went after him, brought him down and gave him a good beating.

I heartily applauded this action and rang the Police Municipal to report the event. They were as surprised as me because we don't have any dodgy immigrants here, so god knows where this kid sprang from. Anyway, they noted what happened and will be keeping their eyes open. The Police Municipal know all the kids around here as they are often patrolling around the schools and intervening in road and bike safety lessons. It would be great if they could pick him up and frighten the bejesus out of him.

Petit con.

Crime is on the increase in France. Last October, violent attacks increased by 9%, theft went up by 8% and financial infraction by 18%. Delinquency increased by 8% in one month and mobile phone theft is up too. French society is getting rougher, less safe and more violent. The Paris cités are the worst, but nowhere is safe nowadays. Not even my cosy village.

Interestingly, in a recent survey by Nouvelles de France, when asked if they would buy a gun on the black market if they could, two thirds of respondents replied in the affirmative. This corresponds with a survey carried out by Fox News in the US last month where two thirds of respondents said they would be prepared to break the law if guns were outlawed.

In case you're wondering, I replied 'no', but I could change my mind... if it came to it. One thing that is becoming clearer over time is the French state is an unreliable protector of its citizens, Holland inspires no confidence in anyone but a small number of the elite bobo Parisians, and ordinary folk are feeling increasingly insecure.

Anyway, let's not get too depressed. Here's Cyprien to cheer us all up with his own tale of woe about a stolen laptop.

Watch Out, there's a Thief About!

I've been trying to find some statistics on crime in Montpellier. This was before I remembered that they are likely to be completely under-estimated because much petty theft goes unreported. You can read about the increase in home burglaries (up 12.5% in 2011) and muggings (up 33% in 2011) but if you get your bag nicked and returned minus the cash who's going to report that?

This was definitely the case when someone stole from my handbag last Friday. I was sitting in a rather nice pub in Montpellier - le Beehive - my bag down by my feet against a wall, and a shopping bag behind me blocking its exit.

In spite of being in a protected spot, when I got up for a minute or two to look at the menu board a couple of metres away, someone took advantage of my inattention and stole my wallet and my Kindle. S/he also stole some stamps (with vegetables on them); the ones you use to post letters to France, but not the other ones for the rest of Europe.

It's a British pub, so many people there were Anglo-Saxons, and as it wasn't very busy, they were all sitting at tables enjoying their drink and some were eating something tasty from the menu. The waiting staff is mostly British and there's a Dutch woman there too. All very nice and polite, and moving about the pub clearing up and serving.

I was pretty distressed to find my wallet and Kindle nicked. My credit cards were not in my wallet, but my driving licence was, plus car and insurance papers, an old carte de séjour and various other bits and bobs. Everything was there to steal my identity if someone so wanted.

The staff were most concerned, naturally, but as I was still able to pay my bill, the situation didn't get out of hand. I left my number 'just in case the items turned up'.

Funnily enough, they did. I went to pick them up the next morning. The cash had been stolen, as had the stamps. My Kindle is only an e-reader, not a tablet, so of no use to a thief (thankfully!). Both items were found stuffed behind the loo in the ladies. I was relieved to get almost everything back, not least because it meant I didn't have to start on the process of renewing all the paperwork and worry about id theft.

When I got back to the tram station where I'd left my car I saw a bunch of gendarmes. I went up to one and told her what had happened. I asked if it was of interest to them that I report the theft (for the sake of statistics). She shrugged and said I could do what I liked, and I understood they didn't give a toss.

So who knows how much petty theft is going on. I now know that the friend of a friend had had her purse stolen in the same pub, le Beehive, just the previous week. It's a nice pub, but I won't be going back. Not until they sort out the thieving, whoever it turns out to be.

Neighbourhood Watschivk

Last year, one of my glass terrace doors received what looked like a good kick which broke one pane of double-glazing but not the other. Together with the stamped on fencing, that was the extent of the damage, luckily.

Apparently it could have been very different. I live in a cul de sac of houses like mine and a couple of months ago there was a 'crime wave' in our little street. Drying sheets were stolen from gardens and houses were broken into in broad daylight during working hours.

The residents had a meeting one day to assess the situation with a local policeman. He told us that the best thing to do was to be aware of our environment, keep a look-out for suspicious doods hanging about and generally be good neighbours. There was, he said, a problem with burglaries throughout the region, the perpetrators being groups of thieves from Eastern Europe.

I was impressed that these guys were not just hooligans from the local sink estate (La Paillade), but had trekked over all the way from a long way east and found our quiet little village. There's dedication!

I would not, however, like to be burgled again. This happened to me in 1992 twice in three months (time to have insurance money and replace the nicked stuff) and that's quite enough thank you. Funnily enough, at that time, we had a bunch of gypsies squatting on waste land 50m from our apartment block with ample leisure time to observe our comings and goings...

Anyway, it seems that the current wave of villainy has pushed the crime figures right up. Le Figaro reports a 10% increase in house break-ins in the last 12 months, with the eastern bloc gangs going essentially for money and jewellery. There's a burglary every 3 minutes nationwide!

On the subject of dodgy goings-on, I was stopped at a roundabout yesterday by a group of three young people wearing visibility jackets. At first, I thought they were members of the CGT distributing strike tracts but was quite surprised when one guy said to me he wasn't going to attack me. I hadn't thought of that, and as soon as he said it immediately wondered how I could escape!

It turned out that this group were supposed to be raising (begging for) money for young people (them...) in difficulty. I asked to see their official paper allowing them to do this and was given a scanned sheet dating back to 2006 authorising 'vente ambulante'. Naturally I said that I couldn't see anything for sale, and was told they had some little teddies but that that wasn't the point. No, I thought, you are begging.

The car in front of me had by this time gone, so I just wished them luck, said I wasn't interested and drove off. I wondered whether I should call the police as, having said they wouldn't attack, they suddenly became a bit scary. Where I come from, you don't need to say you won't be aggressive and if you do, you become like a dentist ("this won't hurt...").

In the end I left them to it. They looked like they could have come from La Paillade and while I applaud their desire to get out of a difficult situation, it's not by begging, however imaginatively, that they'll make any long term difference.