In a Europe that feels increasingly vulnerable to terrorist attack, where taking public transport can often feel like an act of bravery and where, according to a 2013 survey by the European Environment Agency, more than 90 per cent of Europe’s city dwellers are exposed to levels of air pollution harmful to their health, it’s no wonder that the lure of the countryside is stronger than ever. Urban exodus in Western Europe has replaced the rural exodus of the post-war years. In Britain, 60,000 people are fleeing to the country every year; in France that figure is over 100,000.
Most of us have, at one time or another, harboured the dream of escaping to the wild to live a simpler, less stressful life, or of raising our children in a clean and peaceful environment. For many this dream dovetails nicely with the rising cost of urban living. In England in particular, where there are more than 400 people per km2, (compared to 121 people per km2 in France) remoteness has become a luxury commodity and many look to France for a piece of the wilderness. Few of us utopians, though, consider what the hidden lifestyle costs of escape might be.
I’ve experienced the full arc of dream to reality. In the winter of 2009, my husband, two youngest children and I left Paris for the Cévennes Mountains, one of France’s most remote and sparsely populated areas. (The average population density in the Cévennes is 14 people per km2.) Remoteness can be very cheap in France so for our four-bedroom, 17th-century stone house, with its crumbling outbuildings and its hectare of chestnut forest, we paid €140,000. Eight years later we moved back to Paris more broke and stressed than we were when we left and desperately trying to play professional catch-up.