Mr braine says that many of the french workers in dublin who were laid off as a result of the irish economic crisis are trying their luck in london rather than heading straight home .
French twenty-somethings see london as a " gateway to globalisation " , agrees douard braine , the french consul-general , who compares the ritual sojourns in the city taken by his younger compatriots to the globe-trotting gap years favoured by their british peers .
