Author: stagiaire@hereandnow.co.in

When someone starts talking about FRENCH, the first thing that we think about is the beautiful city of Paris or the magnificent iconic world wonder, the Eiffel tower or “La Tour Eiffel” as the French call it !  To the world, French is a language of love, romance and anything beautiful and exotic, but French is not only about “ l’amour  “. We all celebrate the true spirit of affection, attraction, admiration and boundless love with this language along with its rich history and inspiring literature,  be it the French revolution or its amazing paintings or new wave films etc.

French is also a very potent and an extremely powerful language. There are amazing expressions and modes of communication which will make you a true blue fan of this international language. Added to it, are its fascinating ways of pronunciations adding flamboyance and style with a European flash.  It is so true that we do not say the word like in French, but instead love. French is always LOVELY.

French remains one the most diplomatic languages of the world for it is one of the official language in 29 countries of the world and is spoken as the first language in Canada, parts of the US, western Switzerland, Belgium , Monaco and obviously in France !

Statistics

French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union. Owing to its long history as an international language of commerce and literature, French is one of the official languages of international organisations including the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Olympic Committee and many others. It is also a working language of numerous non-profit organisations. This language is considered an asset for business owners and hence this makes French the most sought after foreign language ahead of German and Spanish. The cultural and economic credits of this language are never ending.

Despite French being such a versatile language, it is one of the easiest to learn and understand.

Like many other European languages it has the same Roman script as English. For an English speaking person, it would only take a maximum seven hundred hours of French training to talk and write French with almost no difficulty what so ever. There are countless opportunities that await a Francophone especially in our nation.

Carried Away By the Charm

The French language with its various credible facets and interesting probabilities can be truly stated as the language of the future!

I bet if any one wishes to enjoy a ride with this language, you will definitely be encapsulated with its magnetic charm and a beautiful odyssey of an international feel that may immerse you completely into a different world altogether .

Love French and you will be blown away by its presence ! ! !

Shreya Mahesh

The situation presently in France after the terrorist attack seems to be highly cautious and proactive in terms of defence and security measures. Now France being a major global leader in peacekeeping operations seems to sadly have been on the wrong side of revenge based terrorist attacks.

Coming to the economy, France has not been able to generate a lot of jobs post the recession and 2008 global crisis. The heavy taxation benefiting the social security welfare schemes, the rising costs of living as well as the unemployment rate standing at 11 percent presently has turned out to become a tragedy for the French government in employment and job creation

Regular strikes like the recent bus and transport strikes as well as workers strike in Airbus industry has overall let down people’s expectations in terms of their aspirations and ambitions to achieve or climb to top ladders in the job market.

Majorly in the regions of Ile de Paris as well as the North and the East region, the industries and agriculture related jobs generally thrive . Half of the French population are employed in tertiary private sector with a 33 percent in Govt sectors and 14 percent in the industries and agricultural domain. The tourism industry alone employs 1 million plus people in the sector.

As a leading industrial and a financial superpower with manufactures like Citroen, St Gobain , Total, Airbus, Sanofi, L’Oreal, Puegot, Alstom, Dassault, Lafarge and Schneider Electric etc along with financial chains like Societe Generale and BNP Paribas , France has an amazing list of top class enterprises credited with global acclaim. But either due to technical or global issues, sadly the skill gaps and the right employees for recruitment are not able to be injected into the workforce

The French people give high priority for skills and qualifications along with a major thrust of functional usage of the French language if foreigners or expats wish to apply for jobs. Work permit is easy for EU national except for a Croatian national, where a master’s equivalent is obligatory for granting the permit. Otherwise for other citizens they must be earning a certain specified amount in order to be granted a generous work permit time period.

Now certainly factors like more serious governance by politicians in reskilling the workforce by special apprenticeship initiatives akin to Obama’s policy in notably reducing the American unemployment rate as well as focussing on interesting mergers and tie ups coupled with negotiating strongly with the union leaders must be a continuous pursuit for fixing these issues.

Recently using the rare clause of 149 as per the French Constitution, the Prime Minister Mr Manuel Vals had passed a presidential decree in relaxing the controversial labour law which was propagating easy methods to hire and fire along with many other issues that had irritated the labour community.

Strikes are very common because of the union’s influence in France. Suitably these issues can only be fixed by willful and strong decision making demonstrated by aggressive political steps in initiating reforms along with tightening the grip in the job markets and education sectors by allowing flexible options in parallel with reduction in taxation.

The only good news is that the recent rating by the international credit rating agency Moody Investors Inc has come up with a positive statement emphasizing that the customers and the loan defaulters will not be affected with the present unemployment rate.

Despite the terrorist attacks , global economic meltdown, huge NPAs leading the banks to the brink of collapse, high unemployment rate, frequent labour strikes and European refugee crisis, France remains to be a superpower though weakened by external and internal distractions.

I have full confidence that France will come back to the top pedestal in global rankings once these creative and smart strategic steps are being taken care with a long term perspective.

Can Monsieur Hollande traverse this path and conquer the challenge ?

Let us wait and watch!!!!!!!!!!!
Sidsam

Maple which is a very famous shrub and a tree with its beautiful creation called sap is commonly found in the Canadian region of Quebec .

In the cold winter seasons in Canada amidst the sky with its Alaskan wilderness, the sap is generally collected from the tree and processed retaining its 100 percent purity.

It tastes like honey and adds very less calories to all the items when it is being mixed. It is rich in anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory substances, rich chemicals and nutrients for fighting cancer. It also improves the skin health as well as used as a better medium for digestion, apart from being the best alternative to artificial sweeteners since it contains less amount of fructose and low glycemic Index.

Maple syrup is obtained from the maple tree after some few taps after which it is taken to the sugar house. There it is placed in an evaporator where water gets evaporated producing more quantity of pure sap that is more sweeter and denser.
A typical product of the Quebec region, the Sirop D’e’rable is only found in USA apart from this Canadian paradise. Two spoons being added to sausages or oats or morning meals ( NOT idli or dosa please !!!!!) will certainly be an added healthy proponent in order to enhance the taste as well as the nutritional value.

Please do taste it if you get a chance to do so!!!!!!!

Let your lives become sweeter!!!!!!

Sidsam

European languages like French, German, Italian and Spanish are picking up steam in terms of professional usage among Asians and Americans apart from people in other continents. The European business environment and the market recruitment strategies give more emphasis on qualifications as well as professional standards of an individual.

For a foreigner to focus his or her professional carrier in an European country , one needs to be tick all the above points of getting qualified along with the major task of mastering that native language.

We have Post Graduate Business Programme offered by Indo German Chamber of Commerce with internships and job placements. Indo Italian Chamber of Commerce offering basic professional level competency courses apart from Alliance Française , Max Muller Bhavan – Goethe Institute , Instituto Hispania offer a wide variety of foreign language study options across India and other countries.

Business French offered in Here and Now, a French Language Training Institute located in Chennai under the guidance of Mr Ruthran Raghavan , a self-confessed unimaginable lover of French and a French language expert conducts a variety of courses for students and working professionals out of which Diploma In Business French is an uniquely structured course to Frenchify you professionally into the French speaking industries.

There are a variety of job offers by companies like Amazon and other schools or industries where foreign language teachers as well as interpreters are in very high demand.

Business French – The Special Domain

When we learn a language, we definitely learn all the major aspects of it like grammar, conversations and comprehension etc along with a diverse range of topics for discussion and debate. In this quest of learning the language, the limit of learning BUSINESS FRENCH also expands its tentacles as well as reaches out to a variety of industry related domains like Humana Resources, Marketing and Sales, Public Relations and Corporate Communication, Operations, Production and Administration etc to name a few.
In the recent Global Investors Meet in Chennai companies representing various segments like automobile (Renault), construction (Saint Gobain), food processing (Lactalis) telecommunications (Alcatel) electricity supply and distribution (Alstom Grid) had signed MOUs in the presence of the French ambassador His Excellency Monsieur Fracois Richier and the honourable Chief Minister of TN , Miss J Jayalalitha for starting new operations and services here.

Now along with mastering the language, we also are taught industry level jargons and technical words that also form a major crux of the study and assignments. Issues like labour strikes, recruitments and resignations, import- export, startup culture, stock markets and various other facets of industry related stuffs are taught and discussed.

In this entire process of learning using smart technologies, playing games with apps like Duolingo and Kahoot apart from Youtube videos and online applications will also be an added delicacy to this sweet professional pie.

With time, one needs to evolve and strategize teaching models which would have a far reaching impact on the learners. So films, videos, songs, role plays, fun sessions as well as reading and writing is encouraged in order to boost up our linguistic capabilities for serving the industry.

France, as a major business partner of India has established several industries and outlets in the domains of servicing and production industries like Alcatel , Total, St Gobain, Renault Nissan, Publicis, Solardirect and Lafarge etc

Many companies too have recently signed MOUs for future collaborations in India : Alstom Transport, CAN, Dassault, EDF Energies Nouvelles, Egis, Lumiplan, Pomagalski, Schneider Electric and Thales.
The functional usage of Professional French will lead you to lucrative industry offers namely as a customer service representative, language interpreter, professor, technical positions like field engineers, communication specialists, writer and administrative positions like admin managers in French NGOs etc apart from a variety of long spanning careers in Marketing, Operations, Business Affairs, Engineering and Production domains in Francophone countries like Senegal, Canada, Burundi, Monaco, Luxembourg, Belgium, Djibouti, Niger and Congo to name a few.

The major victory of this course is more importantly about interacting with French speaking citizens or getting used to a French working environment, since it is recognized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as well as other French speaking countries.

One needs to imbibe various aspects like comprehending abilities of authentic and native French speakers, able to play with emotions and words, send business mails, critically analyze case studies and give a more reasoned opinion and decision on professional aspects of the market and industry.

Hence various levels like the elementary A1 and A2 , professional levels of B1 and B2 and finally the level for mastering the subject – C1 and C2 exists though C1 and C2 is a separate study altogether.

In a typical French firm, we need to address issues of our clients and employees as well as coordinate with our workers or managers etc which warrants a decent level of technical usage of language, rather than fanciful usage of expressions or vocabularies.

Certain examples like how do you address a labour unrest, how do you manage a sudden resignation or some official crisis, how to coordinate in designing and modifying automobile parts, how to fix technical issues of customer related products, how to convince people in buying your products with smart and sensible marketing, how to convince an angry customer etc are all taught in this course which is very dynamically structured keeping in mind the industry and market conditions.

So hence along with all the other major achievements and collaborations with other countries, France too has a greater potential in areas of renewable energy, manufacturing, automobile production, infrastructure industry, oil and gas sectors as well as IT services which are among the top priorities in terms of job creation as well as investments in the Indian job market which in turn gets translated into professional opportunities for many to be a part of this growing and promising domain of French related aspects.

sidsam

MSF or Doctors without borders are truly a great and unimaginable inspiration for all across the world as their humanitarian efforts and effective global philanthropic has become a great movement of helping those who are in dire need of great help.

With more than 70 countries in this global moment as well as several other NGOs partnering with it in different countries, they have effectively been providing humanitarian service and medical aid in war torn places or conflict zones, places affected with man-made and  natural calamities as well as other regions where people need extreme medical help for survival.

As globally acclaimed responsible movement their tremendous work in South Sudan , epidemic control measures in Africa, polio and medical camp in Taliban affected Afghanistan ,West Asia and majorly Syria has truly been a moment to think as well as ponder on how these great souls through a well-organized planned network are able to create a positive change in the lives of the people affected with various things.

MSF is working with Medecins du Monde, Gynécologues Sans Frontières and the French Red Cross to provide basic medical care in France alone apart from specializing in various domains of medical expertise.

Psychological counselling , mediation ,medical aid , treatment , vaccination programs, helping refugees cope up with after effects of violence , special care for women in conflict zones , health checkups and nutrition based counselling etc are the raison d’etre of MSF .

Right from 1971 till date the Nobel Prize winning humanitarian organization (1999 winner) has set amazing benchmarks for its stupendous yeoman service along with also lighting the great flame of humanitarian work as a team of uncompromising and highly dynamic individuals sacrificing their safety and priorities for serving the mankind.

Taking care of your people is an act which please even God

Vive MSF !!!!!!!!!!!

sidsam