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London, England (CNN) -- Bindi Dupouy, an Australian living in Paris, and her French husband,
just had their first child, a son born in the country.

Dupouy, a 28-year-old lawyer, got almost five months paid maternity leave
from her company for the birth. She can take another seven months off beyond
that -- a year total -- unpaid, if she wants, with her job guaranteed under
French law.

When her son Louis was born, healthy and by way of a normal delivery, she
got to stay in her local French hospital, around the corner from where she
lives, for five full days, to rest.

Welcome to France, voted the best place in the world to live for the fifth
year in a row by International Living magazine, which has been analyzing data
and publishing its annual Quality of Life Index for 30 years.

One of the reasons France keeps winning the ranking is its world-class
health care system, which Dupouy just experienced first-hand.

"They treat expecting mums like treasures here," Dupouy told CNN
from her Paris apartment. "They take really good care of you. The health
care system is just amazing." She said she wouldn't have gotten the same
maternity leave -- or care -- back home in Australia.

At her job, Dupouy also gets seven weeks paid vacation a year, although
it's her first job as an attorney since graduating with a law degree in
Australia. She doesn't think twice about taking the Metro across town -- for
just $1.37 a ride -- to visit a friend. Or she picks up a rental bike at one of
the many computerized bike hire racks in town to get around.

France scores high marks across the board in the survey, which is done
every January, from health care (100 points) to infrastructure (92 points) to
safety and risk (100 points).

"No surprise," said the magazine in its report. "Its
(France's) tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes are outweighed by an
unsurpassable quality of life, including the world's best health care."

"The bread, the cheese, the wine," Dan Prescher, special projects
editor at the magazine, told CNN, when asked why France just keeps on winning
year after year. "That weighs pretty heavily in quality of life."

They treat expectant mums like treasures here. The health-care system is
just amazing.
--Bindi Dupouy, an Australian in Paris

Prescher admitted the magazine had an "American bias" since the
vast majority of its subscribers are Americans spending in U.S. dollars.
"France is one of those golden places in the American consciousness,"
he said.

The annual index ranks 194 countries and comprises nine categories: Cost of
Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health,
Infrastructure, Safety and Risk and Climate. The Index analyzes data from
several official sources, including government web sites, the World Health
Organization, and several media sources.

Following France in the top ten are Australia, Switzerland, Germany, New
Zealand, Luxembourg, the U.S., Belgium, Canada and Italy, in that order.

"France always nets high scores in most categories," the magazine
said. "But you don't need number-crunchers to tell you its 'bon vivant'
lifestyle is special. It's impossible to enumerate the joy of lingering for
hours over dinner and a bottle of red wine in a Parisian brasserie. Or
strolling beside the Seine on a spring morning, poking through the book
vendors' wares."

Other European countries slipped a little in the magazine's rankings this
year, with the exception of France and Germany. Britain dropped to 25th place
from last year's ranking of 20.

Variety is also seen as a major factor in France's appeal, with the survey
noting that "romantic Paris offers the best of everything, but services
don't fall away in Alsace's wine villages, in wild and lovely Corsica, in
lavender-scented Provence."

The United States dropped from third to seventh place in this year's
rankings, largely because of the grinding economic crisis last year.
"Sustaining the American dream has escalated out of the reach of
many," the magazine said.

"The depression hit the United States and Great Britain hard,"
Prescher told CNN. "That weighs down the ratings."

Of course, France too has its problems. The country suffers from high youth
unemployment, particularly among the disaffected young people who live in its
equivalent of the projects, known as les banlieues.

Late last year, the French government opened a national discussion about
national identity, which has evolved into debates over whether immigrants, and
particularly Muslim immigrants, are French enough. The country has the highest
Muslim population of any European country, with an estimated six million living
in the country.

But for the most part, French people enjoy a good lifestyle. International
Living says that during their large chunk of leisure time, the French enjoy
visiting the country's many beaches and Alpine ski resorts.

Dupouy -- like more famous expats Ernest Hemingway and Julia Child before
her -- agrees.

She and her husband vacation every year at the seaside near Bordeaux, in
the southwest corner of France, where her husband's family has a home. They
also go skiing in the Alps during the winter.

She says that even if she and her husband decide to leave France for awhile
during their lives, they'll always come back -- every year, probably.

"The culture, the food, the family, it's all just really nice
here," said Dupouy.

 

Bearing in mind that we are now fast approaching the traditional 'busy season' in the French housing market, a great number of french home owners are making the decision to drastically reduce the price of their property in order to get a sale.
These, in some cases, huge price reductions, are across the board.from the smallest of projects to the grandest of chateau.
At the begining of the crisis, a lot of owners were prepared to wait for the return of the bouyant markets. However, now we are finding that owners are not happy to sit it out and need to get on with their lives, hence the readjustments.
In many cases these reductions wipe out the differentials brought about by the weakness of the pound, or strength of the euro, making the Dordogne and the Lot et Garonne once again a terrific area to find a bargain property.
For your assistance, all of our properties that heve been reduced in price will be clearly marked in red.

International Living Magazine has put France top of its Quality of Life Index, something which could make it even more popular among potential investors.

France was awarded top spot in the list ahead of other popular locations such as Australia and the US.

Eleanor O'Kane, editor of Living France magazine, believes that the lifestyle on offer combined with value for money property has contributed to the country's success.

"The most popular area at the moment is Creuse - department number 23 -
in Limousin. This is because despite it being rural, it is easily
accessible and the property is reasonably priced," she remarked.

The news comes after primelocation.com reported that, in November, they
were experiencing similar levels of international property searches as
before the economic crisis.

According to the property website, searches for international property
in France took up 29 per cent of its total search volume that month
with Spain the only country proving more popular.

The pressure on the Euro has become immense since Greece was downgraded and the Eurozone refused to step in to help. Traders fear a Lehman Brothers type scenario where Greece defaults on its debt and Portugal, Spain and Ireland are forced to follow suit as the carpet is pulled beneath them.

A report in the telegraph over the weekend suggest the European Central Bank (ECB) are preparing legal ground in the event a Euro member tried to leave the Eurozone breaks up following the Greek crisis.

The fact that EURUSD has fallen over 7.0% since December will not worry the ECB one little bit. They have been attempting to talk the euro down for most of last year to help their exporters pull the Eurozone from recession.

The pound on the other hand has had a great weekend. December CPI inflation data released Monday was 2.9%, much higher than the Bank of England 2.0% target and very close to the number which requires BoE Governor Mervyn King to write a letter of explanation to Chancellor Alistair Darling. This was the largest one-month rise since April 1991.

The next number to surprise to the upside was UK December unemployment which fell by 15.2k, the second consecutive monthly decline.

Euro buyers have therefore been presented with the best levels to buy in 4-months after a 4.5% bounce since last week.

NEWS or noise? Over the last few days there have been a number of articles from various sources in the press that French property prices are on the rise.

An article today on Capital.fr claims that although asking prices were down by 0.4% in October vendors are tending to demand increasingly higher asking prices for new instructions. 

Another article published today by the move channel , a popular UK property portal, states that prices are now 2.8% higher than they were in April 2009. The source of these figures is the FNAIM, the French Institue of Estate Agents. They believe there is good reason to be optimistic and look forward to a more stable French property market in 2010.

According to Athena Mortgages, there was a 14% increase in mortgage completions in the third quarter compared to the previous.

However, both the dollar and the British pound have taken a hammering recently against the mighty Euro. In the last week, however, sterling has come back fighting but just can't seem to hold its position.

The Euro is closely correlated with risk so when investors are feeling gloomy and risk appetite is on the wane then the Euro tends to suffer a lot more than the pound. This was reflected in the 4% fall in the US Dow Jones and UK FTSE stock indexes and the 4% rise in sterling.  

The FTSE has bounced almost 2% already this morning and surprise, surprise sterling has dropped the same amount from the highs. So this week although the ECB rate announcement is the obvious focus, the stock markets hold the key.

A fall to €1.09 is likely in the next few days, but this doesn’t prevent another assault on €1.12+ levels later on.

Let's see.