Book: "Netherlands: Another way of life in Europe"
Cultural differences between the Netherlands and France
The life of a French resident for 30 years
A few hundred kilometres from France, there is in Europe a peculiar society with a distinctive way of life, a peaceful way of living in community that is unbelievable for many French or European people.
"I really enjoyed this book! I found it incredibly useful, even though I've lived here for 30 years !"
Arvind Parmar, Englishman resident in the Netherlands.
"I wish I had it when I arrived in the Netherlands 33 years ago."
Philippe Escoubet, Frenchman resident in the Netherlands.
"Perhaps one doesn’t often wonder what foreigners, who live and work in the Netherlands, think about the Dutch. For instance, our way of life, how we are brought up, experience school education and our general behaviour at work.
Reading this book shows some of these differences in all walks of our daily life, which sometimes make you frown, smile or at least makes you think and understand that there are indeed interesting cultural differences."
Fred de Leau, Dutchman in the Netherlands.
A few hundred kilometers from France, there is in Europe a peculiar society with a distinctive way of living in community that is unbelievable for many French and other Europeans.
Whether you are a «gewoon» Dutch person who is interested to know how you are perceived by a «gewoon» French person who spent 30 years in the Netherlands, noticing how different the Dutch are, and eventually becoming an «Oranje» enthousiast, or whether you are a foreigner to the Dutch society wishing to integrate, you will understand how the Dutch can feel such happiness in their way of living and how they can embrace and tackle the future.
This book will take you to the roots of the cultural, historical and religious differences that clearly distinguish the Netherlands from France and from other countries in Europe.
Welcome to the land of balanced, pragmatic and happy people.
The author:
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A Frenchman who has been living in the Netherlands for 30 years, where he and his wife have raised a family of four children, Christophe Carreau has become a European, both French and Dutch, from the North and the South, with a new, broader and enriched identity, and above all, a real experience and culture as a resident of the Netherlands, which he wishes to share with his compatriots.
The making of the book
Working for the European Space Agency, I had been living with my family in the Netherlands since 1995. Twenty years later, in 2016, the Rosetta mission ended, the aim of which had been to intercept a comet near Jupiter. This captivating but energy- and time-consuming adventure followed other equally exciting scientific missions of the Agency, which had completely absorbed me in my work while my children had grown up, and they spoke Dutch fluently, as well as my wife, all perfectly integrated into society. The end of the Rosetta mission was therefore an opportunity for me to take language lessons again in order to catch up on my homework, and to be able to open my eyes to my host country. I started to study, to read the local press to follow the news and to consider with interest this very singular culture whose depth I had not had the leisure to measure beyond the traditional clichés. I began to observe and appreciate these cultural differences. I began to realize how Dutch I had become myself, how much I had been able to assimilate this life in society so easy and so open that I took without realizing it as natural. I even came to consider taking Dutch nationality, which could not be done without losing my French nationality, and I then gave up.
The time came for retirement. We then decided to share our time between France in the southwest near Bordeaux, and the Netherlands where I still have strong ties. I was then approached by the Maison de l'Europe de Bordeaux Aquitaine (MEBA), by the "Ecole des Grands Parents Européens Bordeaux-Gironde", as well as by the radio RCF in its program "L'Europe c'est vous!" to present the cultural differences between the Netherlands and France. The topics considered were life in a Nordic society known for providing high perceived happiness, euthanasia or the practice of coalition government.​
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Little by little, the list of topics grew deeper, and I found myself, without realizing it, detailing and documenting them in my presentations on the computer. I was seized by the passion to write on a subject that had been dormant in me for a long time. I was inhabited by my book in gestation. The first and short version, written in a few months with enthusiasm, was coolly received at home by my wife who judged it superficial, barely better than an internship report. I suspended writing completely for 2 months, at the end of which I could not help but immerse myself in the subject again. I then undertook without fail and without it costing me, a work of in-depth study. I brought to light during my years of residence in the Netherlands, impressions and events buried in my memory, to confront them through the prism of cultural differences. I compared the two societies side by side in a life that had taken me from one country to another. My deep motivation carried me with ease. I wrote chapters that I had not anticipated, I discovered by digging into recent history the roots of our differences. I realized that my identity had been enriched by a new culture, to the point of considering myself a European originally from France living in the "United Provinces", another neighboring region in my larger country, Europe.
After 2 years, my new book was finally born, and with it a new reason for being.
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Raison d'être
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Today, Europe is a reason to be and live in a connected continent made of exchange, confrontation and mutually beneficial stimulation, of fertile cultural diversity. This European diversity is not only its wealth but above all its energy and its own functioning. It has drawn its values ​​and principles from it, it draws from it the strength to adapt to the world and to move with history. Europe is the very reason to evolve and progress.
Everyone has a European identity in themselves, often hidden. Everyone has the right to access this additional identity without denying their origins and their native culture, quite the contrary by enriching it. Europe is not foreign, everyone must feel at home there.
Europe is not foreign. We must experience it and make it ours.
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