Brexit and me

When I set up this blog I imagined that I would post things about my Brexit experiences in the build up to it actually happening. In the end it seemed like everything that could be said about it was written elsewhere, and in terms of consequences for me personally there was so much uncertainty about what would actually happen that it was not worth it. In the aftermath of Brexit day I received an email from the French government stating that, having already applied for a titre de séjour, I do not have to do anything for now and should not go to my local préfecture: you get the impression they are just annoyed by the whole Brexit thing and are trying to avoid hoards of confused anglais turning up demanding documents. I spent the weekend feeling a sense of loss, which seems to have replaced the rollercoasters of anger and hope of the last years. So I now feel that it's time to share my thoughts.

In case you can't guess, since I'm a Brit living and working in France who will be directly impacted in myriad ways by Brexit, I am vigorously opposed to it, but I would have been so even if I had never emigrated.  In the UK, there has always been a nasty nationalistic undercurrent among a sizeable minority, with foreigners (especially French) being contemptible/lazy/inferior, and it seemed you could never mention Germany without someone referring to Nazis, "Two World Wars and one World Cup," etc, but then my teenage experiences visiting France and Germany made me realise how blinkered this was and that as Europeans we have so much more in common than we have differences. These formative experiences came not long after the founding of the EU in '92, when there was also a strong sense that all of Europe was coming together to work in a common interest and be stronger together, and Europe was being referred to positively in at least part of the public conversation in the UK.

In my field, there are not many British people actually working in Europe. (I often wonder if this is true, and it may just be my perception -- I'd be interested to see some statistics). I think this starts with the fact that very few British students seem to go abroad for their PhDs. Then there are a large number of PhD students trained at UK universities, but they start their doctoral training at a (much) younger age than their European counterparts, and a PhD in the UK is 3, or if they are lucky, 4 years, rather than 5+ in the US. This means that only a small proportion of UK PhD students are actually competitive internationally when they are applying for postdocs: they often just do not have the same level of experience or publications. Partly it will also be because the UK has a large (and very international) academic jobs market, so more British people tend to be absorbed back there than elsewhere for permanent jobs.

... anyway, I have got used to being different, and I enjoy it, even as I feel and try to become more and more native as time goes on. The French system is quite open to non-French permanent researchers, so my lab is rather international. But I am currently the only Englishman, and I don't form part of any sort of British enclave or cabal. So as regards Brexit, I have been somewhat insulated from the apparently toxic atmosphere in the UK for the past three and a half years. Instead I have had a certain stifling sense of worry about the future, because I am one of the people who will be directly affected by the elimination of freedom of movement, and who the British government seems indifferent to (not least because my right to vote in the UK will expire). At the moment this is coupled with anxiety about the French government's pension reforms (which will almost certainly affect me rather severely -- it's perhaps damning that it is still not clear what the reform will actually do in detail) and reforms of the funding of research (the LPPR which aims to install "academic darwinism") ...

So what do French people, and more specifically French academics, think of Brexit? Well, for the large part it is both viewed as tragic and hilarious. It seems to have dispelled talk about "Frexit" (even among the hard-right Rassemblement National). And while at first I was debating Brexit most days with colleagues, now it is regarded as old news and barely merits headlines. People were far more interested in the goings-on in Parliament before Christmas, with my Italian colleagues crowing that they had been overtaken as the country with the most dysfunctional politics. On Friday 31st January when it was mentioned on the radio, they quickly segued into the old anecdote about how "God save the King/Queen" was actually written to celebrate the successful recovery of Louis XIV from surgery for an anal fistula, then stolen by (German-born) Handel and translated for an English audience. The other mention in the news was the storm in a teacup when Guernsey forbade French boats from fishing in their waters; they climbed down immediately when the French ports refused Guernsey boats access.

On a practical level, as I mentioned at the beginning, for the time being I will need a titre de séjour to prove that I can stay, or more specifically exchange the EU one that I was granted last year for some new Brexit card. The French government has set up a brexit website to help inform people of their rights, but since nothing has been firmly decided beyond the transition period the uncertainty will carry on -- although there is probably less uncertainty here about what will actually happen than in the UK. Indeed, I get the impression that there is a relief that perfidious Albion will be out of the European decision-making process, and there is an opportunity to attract businesses and people here. In particular, there were 10 special positions opened in the CNRS across all disciplines this year, which were unofficially intended to attract people fleeing the UK. I have heard of cases of academics doing exactly that already.