Return from paradise

In March 2006 Alex Kevan moved to France. The English engineer was starting a job with Bouygues subsidiary Quille.

Fast forward to summer 2007 and Kevan is planning his return to the UK. Was he missing his Tetleys? Didn’t he like the food?

In 2005 Bouygues UK was looking for people to work across the Channel in its French sister companies, the idea being that the recruits would return to the UK business after a few years fully versed in the Bouygues culture.

Kevan had already spent a year in France as part of his university degree and saw it as a good opportunity to brush up his French. ‘After working in the UK for four years, I realised my French was deteriorating,’ he says. ‘I decided that before I had too many roots in the UK, I would work in France.’ His intention was to start work over there and have his (non French-speaking) fiancée follow him over.

Kevan, who had been working on big civils jobs with Kier, including a CTRL tunnelling contract and King’s Cross, worked first at the Quille head office in Rouen on the site set-up. Then, in June 2006, he headed out to site. And what a site – right by the beautiful Mont St Michel. Quille is building a barrage across the river which runs in front of the Mont St Michel. Sediment has built up in the bay and the barrage will have valves that can open and wash the sediment out to sea.

Despite the lapse since his study year, Kevan did not struggle with the language.

‘The one thing I got to learn from my [university] exchange year was that to understand the courses – and it’s the same when you’re working – the amount of vocabulary is very little. Once you know the word, you know it: concrete, reinforcement, cover crane.’ (see fact file).

The only stumbling block was telephone conversations. ‘Speaking to suppliers was especially hard. Knowing I was foreign, they would not be helpful. Which was all the more reason for me to learn a bit quicker.’

There’s a lot bigger effort to integrate people and make
sure they are happy. On the sites I worked on in the uk, the labourers were there to do a job

For the first few months, Kevan asked his boss to read letters before he sent them. Today, he would only ask for help with contractual letters which employ very formal language.

Kevan says he has learnt a lot from his time in France. Some of this is down to being on a small project: the value of this one is €12m, whereas the jobs he worked on in the UK were £100m plus.

He’s also learnt about the commercial side of French projects. QSs do not exist, so as an engineer, Kevan does the lot, from finding subcontractors through to authorising payments. ‘It’s a more varied role,’ he says. ‘There is less engineering, but it has given me a lot more commercial awareness.’

Attitudes to the workforce are different in France, says Kevan, since most of the labour is skilled and some tradesmen have been working for the same firm for decades. ‘There’s a lot bigger effort to integrate people and make sure they are happy. On the sites I worked on in the UK, the labourers were there to do a job.’

So what of French food and wine, the bistro culture? Lunchtimes are very different – the foremen and engineering staff eat together at a local restaurant. But the rural location, although picturesque, does not make for a good nightlife. Kevan confesses to working from 7:30am until 7pm, partly because he doesn’t want to go home to the gîte he shares with three colleagues just to watch TV.

Not much chance for la vie francais at weekends either, since everyone is working away from home and so there’s a mass exodus on a Friday. Kevan, too, has been back to London most weekends. One reason for these visits home, and the reason why he’s quitting France, is that he is getting married next May and his fiancee’s job in the civil service has taken off, making the prospect of starting a new life in France less appealing.

Kevan hopes to be back in London, working for Bouygues UK, by then. But he doesn’t regret his move to France. ‘If anyone asked me if it is a good idea to move over to France and work, I would say “yes, give it a go”. A lot of things are different. I cannot say if they are better or worse.’ cm