France

Fam. Michel

Emigration is a huge step; we did not realize this at the beginning. A relationship based on confidence with your emigration consultant is very important. Because of the distance or language barriers you have to be able to trust your emigration consultant blindly. At the end we found our farm and we thank Interfarms for this.

My wife Mirjam 28 years and I, 30 years both have agricultural roots. We both did not have the option to take over the family farm and are livestock farmers in our hart. As young persons in Switzerland without a family farm it is almost impossible to be a farmer. The structures in Switzerland are small, the land is expensive and for a young couple as we are financially impossible. From this point we started to think about immigration. France could be the right Country for us. France subsidies young farmers and also the banks are pro agriculture. Also the French culture is a little alike the Swiss.

Through the Internet we contacted several Real Estate agencies. We realized our project with Interfarms, because Willem en Ellen Hospel seemed to know what we where looking for. Soon after that we found our farm. Emigration is a huge step; we did not realize this at the beginning. A relationship based on confidence with your emigration consultant is very important. Because of the distance or language barriers you have to be able to trust your emigration consultant blindly. At the end we found our farm and we thank Interfarms for this. For the second time we would like to have a better time schedule and a more detailed plan who does what (civil servants, permits).

We build up a good relationship already with the people in our area Cŏte d’Armor in Brittany, and we always did get what we where asking for although our French is not good. The people are helpful and appreciate that you try to speak and understand their language. We have the feeling that they are more open here than Swiss people are. It often happened that somebody just popped in or that neighbours invited us. We realize that after a half year we are not integrated yet, but we made our first important steps. We hope to develop our farm in the future and with that our dream is fulfilled.

Marc and Mirjam Michel

Other experiences