Paris Attitude - Rent furnished apartments

Paris remains tourists’ favorite destination but it has also been attracting for quite some time a different profile of visitors who settle down for a couple of weeks or a few months, on their own or with their entire family: foreign expatriates who must spend two weeks every month as part of their professional routine or who are sent for a mission of a year or more, but also French executives who are coming back from an assignment on the opposite side of the world and need to get their local mojo back -and a place to live- in the capital.

There are multiple ways to sell Paris to someone who has not fallen in love with it yet. The most obvious way would be to praise its rich cultural life, the uniqueness of its lifestyle, the beauty of its streets. Paris has been such a dream destination for so many years that one would almost forget that it also has some more practical assets such as great work and economic dynamism, top of the class research and innovation pools, excellent infrastructures that convince many entrepreneurs every year to expand or start a business there.

France has multiple agreements with other countries. Most of the time it automatically grants you a short-term visa of 90 days if you are coming on holiday for a shot of the French “art-de-vivre”.

Thousands of foreign students come to Paris to study every year. Obviously the city itself has a lot to offer, a promise of great food, great time, great fashion and great culture but not just so. Higher education in France, even though it has been challenged by the USA, UK or even China, still has a solid academic reputation.

Immigration has been a sensitive subject for decades now. When chosen, it’s either made out of compassion for those struggling to survive or out of genuine opportunism for those with skills that might be an added –value for the country willing to welcome them.

Coming to France to study is a dream or a soon-to-be reality for many foreign students. The quality of its education, its “art-de vivre” and its rich yet accessible cultural resources make it a very desirable country to spend a year or two while learning new competences from French language to French cuisine but also business, law, science, etc.

A few hundred thousand foreign students come every year to study in one of the French universities or post-graduate schools.

They often come through an exchange program with their own school back home or sometimes decide to come and study on their own like how to become a pastry chef or to learn French.

Not so many people –and certainly not the candidates for expatriation- suspect the potential “tsunami” that is awaiting them after they spent a few months or a few years away from home in a foreign country, when it’s time to come back home.

The French healthcare system is known to be one of the best in the world. And if French people are prompt to criticize it (it’s a “national sport”!), they defend it all the same.