The Curious Stigma of Being an Expatriate
In Paris, when friends get together and one mentions that he or she is moving overseas to become a “francais de l’etranger,” or a “Frenchman in a foreign land,” the first reaction is this: “What are you running away from?”
To be a stranger in a strange land may sound romantic and adventurous, but it is also fraught with implications. The French are always suspicious of their fellow countrymen they encounter overseas. There is a saying in Paris that the person most likely to swindle you is a fellow Frenchman overseas. Parisians warn each other, with horror stories, about their experiences, or those of acquaintances, when dealing with other Frenchmen living in foreign countries. In France, the stereotype of a French expatriate is of a middle-aged man, who was never too successful in France, who decides to leave France in order to start fresh, in a place where he can reinvent himself.
Often he is also looking for “a less assertive” woman, easily deceived, younger and less experienced in life, with whom to have children. He is also on the prowl for susceptible locals willing to believe in the integrity of a European, or other Frenchmen innocently believing the naive notion that a fellow Frenchman would have his best interests at heart in a foreign land.
Then the story ends in disappointment: the local who was swindled, the fellow Frenchman who was betrayed. The French, in other words, are advised to stay clear of any financial dealings with fellow Frenchmen in foreign lands.
What of Americans in foreign lands? What of Canadians in foreign lands? What are the assumptions that others will make of you?
Will they see you as friend or foe?
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