English homes attacked in Brittany

On my way home last night I read a slightly unsettling article in one of the free London newspapers:

British families have had their homes and cars set alight in a spate of attacks against foreign-owned property in Brittany. "Britts out" graffiti has been daubed across towns in the area in protests over an influx of foreign homeowners, which has caused house prices to spiral. Last night, Iraq war veteran Darren Widd and his wife Linsey were forced to flee their home in Callac at 2am with their daughter Chloe, two. Arsonists had attached their car,parked directly outside their café-bar, causing their property to go up in flames. On the same night, two English-owned homes in a nearby village were ransacked and a camper van set ablaze.

Of course reading articles like this it's hard to understand whether this was just a one-off incident or whether it really is as bad as the headline writers would have us believe. I had a look on both BBC news where I found nothing and then Google news which lead me to a similar article about English homes being attacked on Times Online.

My experience has if anything been pretty much the opposite of the story-line. We've found that although there are quite a few ex-pats living in Brittany there's hardly enough to be described as an 'influx'. We only know of one other English couple a few miles away from us and it's hardly Costa del Sol with wall-to-wall fish and chip shops and English bars on the high street. English occupation levels are I believe much higher in neighbouring Normandy around Cherbourg, St James and Vire.

We've always been made very welcome by everyone we've met; our immediate neighbours often give us (and our holiday guests) little parcels of home-grown produce from their garden - a lettuce or two, tomatoes, rhubarb or French beans. I've always tried to keep them informed of what we are doing in the house and they've always been very friendly and pleasant despite the language barrier which can reduce the small-talk between us!

I've also heard quite the opposite on the issue of the English buying up all the properties in the area. Most English looking to buy in rural France want to buy a characterful house with stone walls and oak beams - quite the opposite of the French who want to live in a modern centrally heated house with big windows and a manageable garden. They're often more than happy to sell on a crumbling pile of stones (sometimes little more than a shell of a building - what our estate agents would call 'has potential') and move to somewhere more up to date and modern. Of course renovating the property then means more work for the local builders, tradesmen and bricolage's and if the mad Anglais want to pay over the odds for a ruin then a canny Frenchman is hardly going to stand in their way!

The housing market in France has for the last few years been considerably steadier than it has in the UK. Most areas have seen a gradual 4-7% rise in property prices per year, far lower than the galloping UK property inflation, and obviously there is the usual laws of supply and demand especially in and around fashionable towns and seaside resorts. There's definite evidence of over-supply as well and it's not uncommon for houses to take up to 2 years to sell - two sets of friends of ours have had their houses on the market for over a year.

I'm obviously sorry to hear of the Widd's tale and hope (and my own experiences back this up) that this is a relatively isolated incident.