Genuinely happy to hear you're successful here! But, why would you expect there to be no drawback to not knowing the local language when moving to a foreign country?
Definitely, I had a good awareness of the language barrier from the day I arrived.
To be fair, I have continued learning German—not because I want to pass the B1 examination and obtain permanent residence, but because I feel my children need to be protected and guided, and I want to teach them the same things they learn at school. Every moment I spend learning the language is a moment I invest out of love, so that I can be a better and more supportive parent.
Then why are you complaining about the language requirement for permanent residency? You knew the tradeoffs and chose them willingly, enjoy your income, invest in your home country and move back once you retire.
Simply making higher-than-median income should not make you eligible for permanent residency. Cultural immersion and assimilation is important to maintain social stability and language is just the first step. From what I found (and as another commenter pointed out) the bar is not even that high.
Edit: For context I am not a right winger and am an immigrant myself. But I am seeing the social fabric of my host country (Canada) degrade because of immigrants' refusal to assimilate.
Why do you want people with foreign backgrounds to “assimilate”? If you were to move to France, are you going to abandon your own language, culture, and play-pretend to be a Frenchman?
If you live somewhere long enough, know the country, work and handle daily life without issues, have social connections with other people in this society, understand at least some language - in my opinion you are as integrated in that country as needed.
> Why do you want people with foreign backgrounds to “assimilate”?
It’s a healthy, human process that forces weighing what works and what doesn’t across cultures and, hopefully, walking away with something better than either individually. The idea that immigrants shouldn’t have to assimilate is arrogance redressed.
You're making it sound like the desire to be a Frenchman is an unreasonable requirement for becoming a Frenchman.
> abandon your own language, culture
Thank god nobody is asking this. They're being asked to learn enough French to participate in France. B1 is hard, but it ain't B2, and you'll still barely understand what's going on around you.
The discussion is about permanent residence, not citizenship.
Permanent residence allows eg an employee be able to continue staying in a country without being dependent on a particular employer and having to reapply everytime they change jobs. It is gives a person who works in a country for a certain amount of time already, paying taxes etc, having the same rights as an employee.
If someone wants to be a permanent resident of a country and build their life there, they should have to plan to eventually become a citizen of that country.
To allow otherwise leads to its destruction, just people with no long term skin in the game extracting before moving on.
It is a huge conflict of interest among the population. Its like having a corporation where half the owners want a quick return and exist and half want to run it like a lifestyle company.
Either you argue that the job requires you to stay in another country and the stay is always temporary and there you would not focus on any given language since you're going to leave before you reach any level of proficiency
or you want to stay in the country because you like it and therefore learn the language.
You cannot cherry pick the option where you have your cake and eat it too.
It is illogical to demand permanent residency for a temporary stay that is short enough to not bother learning the language.
So how the “assimilation” looks like to you? If you ever have kids, are you going to be speaking French only with them? Do you try to catch up with vast cultural background that people experience since childhood in France? Do you plan to change your name to sometime more French-sounding?
It depends on your goal. If you want to just work, pay taxes and save money and move back after retirement then maintain your home culture all you want. But don’t complain about PR then. Especially on the basis of how much money you make.
But if you want “permanent” residency then yes you have to be a bit of a “pretend-Frenchman” or however you want to put it. I just pointed out that tradeoff in the GP comment.
The biggest hypocrisy is that you will never be considered a real Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Vietnamese even if you learn their languages and adopt all their cultural traits. Western countries are very generous about this but you do have to meet them half way. B1 level proficiency is not even that high of a bar - compare that to living in China.
To be fair, I have continued learning German—not because I want to pass the B1 examination and obtain permanent residence, but because I feel my children need to be protected and guided, and I want to teach them the same things they learn at school. Every moment I spend learning the language is a moment I invest out of love, so that I can be a better and more supportive parent.