It is a pretty, well-preserved and prosperous little market town like so many in south-west England: mellow stones and swallows over the square. A pub, a tea-room, a shop selling Branston pickle, baked beans, After Eight mints, custard creams and curry paste. A cricket club.
Except Eymet is not in south-west England but in south-west France, in the Dordogne, an area to which Francophile Brits – drawn by hills that feel like home, sunshine that doesn’t, and a rumour that with a following wind you might still be able to get Radio 4 – have been migrating since the 1970s.
Helped since those days by more modern developments such as cheap flights to Bergerac airport, 20 minutes’ drive away, TV shows vaunting the joys of a new life abroad, and high-speed internet, the British population of this medieval bastide has swollen to more than 400 – out of a total of 2,600.
Many are retired. Others are younger, with thriving small businesses and children at the village school. Days from a referendum that could result in Britain leaving the European Union, all are anxious.
“Two big things, really,” says Robert Johnson, 72, a retired management trainer who moved to the area from Wiltshire five years ago, crisply enumerating the immediate, practical concerns of many. “The exchange rate. We’re pensioners. We live on a fixed sterling income. If the pound falls …”
And healthcare, of course. Like most retirees here who paid national insurance in the UK, Johnson and his wife, Jenny, have just a small top-up policy in France because the French system covers 70% of their treatment costs. “But that’s because we’re in the EU,” he says. “What happens if we leave?”
Two tables away on the shaded terrace of Le Pub Gambetta, retired civil servant Andrew Hill has the same concerns, plus some more. “Actually, I don’t want to view this personally,” he says. “It’s much bigger than that. I’m just angry at people giving in so easily to the forces of ignorance and suspicion. People not getting that Brexit will be like a leap in the dark, backwards.”
Behind the bar, Rupert Bache, who has lived in France for 27 years (running Le Pub, with his wife, Mathilde, for the past eight), also has difficulty separating the personal from the political. “I’ve always been disappointed by British ambiguity on Europe,” he says.
“I’ve always thought neighbouring countries working together positively was just … sensible. Neighbouring countries not working together is what killed the men – former pupils – whose names were all along the corridor at school.” Bache will apply for French nationality if Brexit happens.
His wife, whose family came originally from the Savoie in eastern France, is not sure that spirit applies to all in Eymet. “Most Brits aren’t here because they’re convinced Europeans,” she says. “They’re here because houses are cheap, the sun shines, the wine is good … Some have been here for 20 years and they still don’t really speak the language. They call themselves expats but they’re immigrants really, of course, like so many of us. But they don’t always see it that way.”
And perhaps, Mathilde feels, Britain would not be on the brink of voting leave if the EU were “fairer, more democratic, more about solidarity, more respecting of national cultures”. A Brexit vote, for all its unwelcome consequences for some of her customers, might be “the kick Europe needs”.
Few here think anyone risks eviction. “They’ll have to sort something out,” says Adrian Cattermole, a bookkeeper in a former life, who now runs the Cafe des Arts. “My real worries are for my country: a very ugly genie is out of the bottle. But I can’t see the French chucking us out. They want us here.”
That rings true. The formalities may multiply (the carte de séjour would surely be back; driving licences would change), but anything that raises a barrier to British visitors and residents in the Dordogne – from dearer flights to a language requirement for residence to an end to the pet passport scheme – will not be welcome in Eymet.
“To put it bluntly, they keep the place going,” says Patrick Diemert, who runs an antiques shop on the corner of the square and reckons 65% of his clients are British. “The shops, the restaurants, the bars ... You look at some similar-sized towns in France, even not far from here. They’re half-dead.”
The British contingent “bring a huge amount to the town”, agrees Marie-José Chaussende, who with her partner, Christine Fèvre, runs a B&B with “at least 80%” British guests. “They don’t just have money, they go out … For a town like this, if they vanished it would be dramatic. Really dramatic.”
Chaussende has already seen a fall-off of house-hunting couples this year (with the exception of two families with young children who were “determined to come here, Brexit or no Brexit”).
Terrie Simpson, whose Agence Eleonor is one of several Eymet estate agents catering to the British market, has seen the same.
“People of retirement age especially,” says Simpson, who worked for Boddington’s brewery before she moved to Eymet 14 years ago (“It’s pretty, it’s safe, it’s 90 minutes from England; there’s great weather, great wine, a great health system. Look, my mum’s 70 and needs a new knee. There’s a 16-week wait on the NHS just to see a consultant. Not here there isn’t.”)
But Simpson says she had seen “quite a few people just … hesitating. They’re holding off. Saying, ‘We really, really like this house, but we’re just going to wait for a few more weeks. See how the referendum goes.’ There’s no doubt people are really quite concerned.”
Like many in Eymet, Simpson also harbours regrets at the divisive nature of the referendum debate in Britain – and at the pronouncements of one Conservative politician in particular who, until his spectacular landing in the leave camp, was something of a favourite round these parts.
“I am,” Simpson says, “a bit disappointed in our Boris. I’ve always liked him, you know, as a politician, but he’s lost my respect now. He’s doing this for personal gain. He really should be ashamed of himself.”
Worse, says Brian Slaney, 78, shopping in Eymet’s British-run Farrow & Ball paint stockist, “he’s insulting people.” Slaney adds that he once thought Johnson would make “quite a good PM. But when you listen to what he’s saying, the things he’s expecting us to believe ... It’s outrageous, really”.
Aside from the impact on their clientele and the VAT implications, Eymet’s British shopkeepers are not immediately alarmed at the idea of Brexit. “I work for a French company, I pay French taxes, French social security – to all intents and purposes, as far as the system’s concerned, I’m French,” says Louise Little.
But Little, who works in a home decor and design shop, worries for her children, who are studying at UK universities. “Whatever happens, it’ll be 10 years before it takes effect,” she says. “I’m OK. But the younger generation ... They’re the ones whose choices will be determined by this.”
Nursing a Guinness outside the Cafe de Paris, Damian Berry, 30, who arrived with his parents aged 15 and now works for a local British building firm, is blessing his Irish passport. He says he will stay come what may, even if the place “would be like a ghost town if the British money left”.
Monica Clarke fled South Africa to Britain as a political refugee. She and her husband, Hedley Bennett, are “aghast” at what the UK is contemplating. “The EU has given us absolute stability,” Bennett says. “And we celebrate different cultures in Britain,” adds Clarke. “What are we even thinking of, turning our backs on Europe?”
Only one person in Eymet seems cheered – if not by what an actual Brexit might entail, then by new business the mere prospect of one was generating. “It’s certainly focused minds,” says Tony Delvalle, a British independent financial adviser. “A lot of people have suddenly realised they have stuff to sort out.”
Delvalle signed up a dozen new clients at a recent information evening. He says Brexit might at least make Eymet’s British population understand they are actually living in another country, with a different tax and legal system.
“They see an English dog grooming parlour, an English hairdresser, a bunch of English restaurants, an English optician,” says Delvalle, “and they think they’re in a corner of England. Problem is, EU or no EU, the French taxman thinks otherwise.”
