SIR -- I'M A HOPPING MAD EXPAT. Hopping mad because of Lib Deb Home office minister Jeremy Browne's statement that "Britons who retire overseas contribute little to the local economy"
(report issue 1156).
THIS IS NONSENSE. I and most of the 250,000 who live in France bought property with money from outside France and employed a team of French workers to
renovate it, paying them with money earned outside France.
MOREOVER MY WIFE AND I live on pensions that we earned in the United Kingdom and are paid by the UK. Each month
we contribute several thousand euros to the French economy. We are looked after by the excellent French health service and I have had two major but happily successful major operations, both expensive.
BUT WHO PAID FOR THOSE? Answer: the UK.
Each month David Cameron signs a whopping cheque payable to the French equivalent of the NHS, for us
British living in France. We are not freeloaders living at the expense of the French economy... and what's more the British even give the French, at no charge,new words to enliven their language.
Dr William Larkworthy Malaucene, France.