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2009-07-22 10:54:35
Surely guilin massage there is some sort of grant
system in France? Apparently not one that is easy to tap into if your family is low-income but self-supporting. Loans, then? These have to be paid back almost immediately, unlike the long -term arrangements in the UK. Couldn't she have lived at home and saved money that way? Her parents' home was 35km (22miles) from the university, far short of the 250km that would have ensured her some kind of living allowance - and by her account, transport into and out of the city is both patchy and expensive.
In France, nearly 40,000 students of both sexes turn to prostitution simply to make ends meet, according to the book's appendix, which is written by Eva Clouet, another student. This seems an extraordinary statistic, given the generous French welfare system. It is also a number that, for obvious reasons, is difficult to corroborate. However, it does seem that, when it comes to students, French welfare is something of a myth, which is why Laura says that she wrote the book. She didn't come across other student prostitutes herself - perhaps they were as secretive as she is - but her clients told her that they were a common phenomenon .
“I wanted to bring something into the open that is still brushed under the carpet in France, and make people understand that there are so many people like me caught up in this,” she says. “When the book came out in France a lot of people said that it was my choice - but at the time it didn't feel like a choice. It felt like an obligation.” OK. Pause there. Because before I met Laura, while I was still reading her understandably angry yet oddly stilted book (although that could be partly the translation, or because the guilin massage original version was co-authored with another student, neither of them writers), I felt as cynical as you may do reading this.
