Spreading your wings

Education. By and large, a good thing. If you’re of a certain vintage - and struggle to download a bestseller to your tablet - you’ll remember instead school bookshops and the page flicking pleasure of a freshly minted paperback (for readers under 20, imagine something like a bendy i pad which doesn’t need batteries - and for which you won’t get mugged). And even if the latest arrivals on the shelves didn’t grab you, some titles were required reading – amongst which was Catch 22. Long winded, self indulgent and pretty indigestible, it’s also become shorthand for the irresolvable. 

Rather like getting a French student loan, in fact. Having worked his or her way through the school system, imagine your (soon fleeting) delight as your eldest decides that university appeals. From their point of view, it’s infinitely preferable to getting a job, comes with a cool flat and the workload is inversely proportional to the amount of partying on offer. So far, so perfect. Downside is, inevitably, that it all comes at a price. The apartment turns out to be only marginally less expensive that its Knightsbridge equivalent, the tuition fees are excruciating and, whilst obviously essential, Cobra beer isn’t cheap either.

Together though, you’ve provided reams of paperwork to their former lycée, the examination authority, the social security people, the people who dish out grants, the flat letting agent and the university – none of whom would dream of talking to each other and all of which want the complete dossier before they’ll do anything. But somehow – and without killing any of the functionnaires involved – it’s done. All that’s left is getting a loan to cover the some of the costs - the bank of mum and dad being somewhat strapped.

Given that banks are the only place where you can get one, and with a heavy heart, you again fill out a Tolstoy sized pile of forms at your local branch – the one that you’ve used for years. Who then say no. Pourquoi, you ask. Because, you are told by the woman behind the desk (who already has one eye on the clock, it being dangerously near lunchtime) your income, monsieur, is insufficient. This you already know – that’s why you are asking for a loan. If you were wealthier you wouldn’t be asking to borrow money at usury rates and with swinging late payment penalty clauses. And it’s not for you anyway. And so it goes on, without end – ditto subsequently at the bank recommended by the university - Joseph Heller would be impressed. And in the end, delving deeper into savings turns out to be the only answer. Bienvenue to the world of higher education, French style. It had better be good.