Journal du Centre is the main newspaper from Nièvre, Virginie’s home department. The newspaper has a section called “Expatriés Nivernais“, that brings profiles of Nièvre’s people living abroad - the so-called “expatriates”. They’ve recently published Virginie’s profile, in which I’m cited as her “Brazilian-origin Spanish husband”. Click on the picture to read the original article in Journal du Centre. For those of you who don’t know Molière’s language very well (or, as my sister Lilian would put: for those you who aren’t “chic” enough), I put here a translation.

Virginie Aubert-Boullosa, an young 27 years old Imphy female, enjoy happy days in Barcelona in the company of her Brazilian-origin husband. A peaceful family life for this former student of Applied Foreign Languages.

Coincidences sometimes work. Some weeks ago, we talked to Virginie by phone to interview her to our expatriates section. Two days later, this young lady resident in Barcelona was already in our office. The former student of Alain-Colas college was taking some days of vacation with her family in Nevers. That was the occasion for her to tell us about her trajectory and her life in Catalonia.

Born in Nevers, Virginie Aubert-Boullosa spent her childhood in Imphy, before entering the Liceu-Alain Colas and the University of Dijon, where she studied Applied Foreign Languages (LEA). Those studies allowed her to do an internship in Barcelona for nine months and then another one in Dublin, where she lived for three months.

It was natural to the former student of the Imphy’s Louis Aragon school to fall to the temptation of living abroad as soon as she received her diploma: “As a student of languages, I had no choice: I had to work in a large metropolis. But I did not want to live in Paris. I had enjoyed the training and experience in Barcelona, and, moreover, I knew it would be easy to find a job in Spain “.

Many people earn 1000 euros

Living initially in a friend’s apartment, Virginie got a job, after only three days of searching, in a large computer company, where she worked for two years. Then, she became assistant in the Buying Department of a food factory.

Today, the young nivernese, looking forward to be a mom in September, enjoy happy days in the Sants-Montjuic neighborhood in Barcelona: “It’s a different rhythm of life. We take life more calmly due to climate and mentality.” Among the negative aspects, the cost of living, which is very high: “the Spanish minimum wage is 600 euros. Many people earn 1,000 euros. They are the so-called ‘mileuristas’.” In Spain, she could also notice the perception that the locals have about France: “People here do not have a good image of France after the arrival of Sarkozy. They also do not understand why we do such many strikes in France.”

Married to a Brazilian-origin Spanish guy, Beto, Virginie does not rule out returning one day to the “Hexagon” (France), especially to the south, although she enjoys the cosmopolitan way of life of the Catalonian capital: “we find many different cultures, but the foreigners come and leave. It is difficult to make friends and we are far from our families. ”

Romain Coulangeon

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