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What do I expect from IET – Community - France & Paris.

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
Firstly who are the IET Fr MIET members?

I joined this PEI in 1980 from Grenoble. I was on substantive leave from MoD. I decided to stay for a longer period and got married here. At that time we were the first to come over with the EU agreements of that period.

There were already ex-patriot UK people with huge benefits living here, there were the UK EU adventurers with no objectives but work was abundant, there were the first student exchanges, and some had married into French families. I did not meet any UK people who simply came here to live and work at that time.

 

Most of us found the difference between the UK and France as difficult as between the UK and China. They just did not live, eat or drink like us.

 

I was advised by the first UK settlers to just join in and enjoy myself, which I did.

I first met French culture when I organised the “entente cordiale” between the Concorde R&D groups of UK RAE and French ONERA. It was unbelievable, when the opportunity to have a job and career change came, I took up nuclear engineering in France.

 

I returned to the UK which had drastically changed – Thatcher, strikes, riots. My name  was plagiarised in my work. I had to leave the UK after my employers failed to protect me. I returned to France.

The first time every one talked of the quality of life in France, the second time it was the Iraqi wars and crisis.

 

So what do you need to work and survive in France now and how can the IET French Community help.

France is huge; it is not realistic to travel from SE or SW France for a meeting in Paris.

Maybe we need a newcomers guide such as most French towns give to new arrivals.

France is still totally different from the UK.

We have different categories of IET members who are at least engineering & technology related.

 -Ex-patriot, UK enterprise sales & marketing staff, Erasmus students, Enterprises from the UK that have delocalised with their staff, those that have married into families, entrepreneurs and SMEs in IT technology and those that now just want to work and live in France etc.

What would you advise
  • Should we have a MIET arrivals’ guide

  • Should we have guides to French language courses

  • Should we have guides to CPD in France

  • Should we give advice on French administration

  • What about the dos and don’ts of French culture.


Or should we just mind our own business and keep it to ourselves?

 

I recommend reading : Stephen Clarke – 1000 years of annoying the French and other titles and most of his references. French English history is not as taught in schools.
  •  Out of season hotels in France are cheap, maybe one or two visits with IET families or friends to E&T venues could be affordable.


And the French Community AGM & voting should be on line and at distance.

I’m retiring from E&T have fun in France

 

Give Rob McCann some help

 

John Gowman MIET (ex ITEME Grenobl 1980)

 

Parents
  • 0
    Hi everyone,

    Recently my inbox has been filled with your posts on this discussion topic, well done :)


    I am a CEng MIET working in France. I work on the ITER project so my position is probably different from most other MIETs in France - if I leave ITER I don't intend to stay in France.


    What do I expext from the IET? Well, John's last post of ideas is one I generally agree with. Many other good suggestions have also been posted. However here's a summary of my feelings on the subject:
    • EC(UK) registration and the IET are generally irrelevant in France, only other people registered with EC(UK) know what it is. In terms of career mobility in France, it is probably only useful in rare circumstances

    • Is it useful for the IET to promote the IET as a brand in France? Promotion of EC(UK) registration in France would be more useful, but must be done with a single voice in combination with the other EC(UK) institutions

    • I've no idea how to contact other MIETs in my area, so even if I wanted to organise an informal meetup to see if we could start some local regular functions I don't know how I would do this.

    • In most of France the density of MIETs is probablty too low to permit local area meetups; I personally would struggle to justify more than 1 hour drive from where I live, and that would have to be for an exceptionally interesting meeting - remember we have to drive home too!

    • Therefore meetings in Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, even Nice, are not of interest to me - but please don't let that stop you organising them for everyone else!

    • The most useful thing the IET could do in France is make it easy for us to contact other MIETs and members of other EC(UK) institutions in our local area - ICE, IMechE, BCS, even smaller ones like the Nuclear Institute and the Institution of Measurement and Control - otherwise I have to become a non-paying member of all these other institutions, and I don't even know if that is possible.


    Personally I would prefer that there was a single professional engineering institution for EC(UK) registration, not split up into IET, BCS, IMechE, ICE, etc. A separate institution for each engineering discipline is just overly complicated and dilutes the community and public voice of our profession. Even if we can't manage this in the UK, please can we at least make this possible in other countries?


    Cheers,

    Will

Reply
  • 0
    Hi everyone,

    Recently my inbox has been filled with your posts on this discussion topic, well done :)


    I am a CEng MIET working in France. I work on the ITER project so my position is probably different from most other MIETs in France - if I leave ITER I don't intend to stay in France.


    What do I expext from the IET? Well, John's last post of ideas is one I generally agree with. Many other good suggestions have also been posted. However here's a summary of my feelings on the subject:
    • EC(UK) registration and the IET are generally irrelevant in France, only other people registered with EC(UK) know what it is. In terms of career mobility in France, it is probably only useful in rare circumstances

    • Is it useful for the IET to promote the IET as a brand in France? Promotion of EC(UK) registration in France would be more useful, but must be done with a single voice in combination with the other EC(UK) institutions

    • I've no idea how to contact other MIETs in my area, so even if I wanted to organise an informal meetup to see if we could start some local regular functions I don't know how I would do this.

    • In most of France the density of MIETs is probablty too low to permit local area meetups; I personally would struggle to justify more than 1 hour drive from where I live, and that would have to be for an exceptionally interesting meeting - remember we have to drive home too!

    • Therefore meetings in Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, even Nice, are not of interest to me - but please don't let that stop you organising them for everyone else!

    • The most useful thing the IET could do in France is make it easy for us to contact other MIETs and members of other EC(UK) institutions in our local area - ICE, IMechE, BCS, even smaller ones like the Nuclear Institute and the Institution of Measurement and Control - otherwise I have to become a non-paying member of all these other institutions, and I don't even know if that is possible.


    Personally I would prefer that there was a single professional engineering institution for EC(UK) registration, not split up into IET, BCS, IMechE, ICE, etc. A separate institution for each engineering discipline is just overly complicated and dilutes the community and public voice of our profession. Even if we can't manage this in the UK, please can we at least make this possible in other countries?


    Cheers,

    Will

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