Picture the scene. You have a comfortable three-bedroom house that's an 80-minute commute away from your London office. From today, you can swap it for a similar-sized property in northern France that's half of what it would cost in south-east England, leaving you enough for a pied-a-terre in the centre of Lille.
Rather than pushing your way on to the 6.36am from Faversham to Cannon Street (arriving at 7.54am), you could spend the same journey time travelling into St Pancras in a reserved seat. Throw in the added bonus of excellent restaurants, cheap food and good quality healthcare and schooling, and life on the other side of the Channel starts sounding like a no-brainer.
