He dreams of a red flag, with a white cross, and a Swiss accent, but for the moment, Vincent Dufour still has to cross the Luxembourg border every morning to go to work. This 35-year-old French cross-border worker, who lives in Thionville, has nothing against the Grand Duchy where he has worked as a company receptionist for eight years, “everything is going very well, I like the job”, it’s just that love has knocked at the door and that his life is now planned elsewhere. His partner lives in Franche-Comté, in France near Switzerland, and he has only one obsession: to join her.
On October 27, he attracted attention during the Lausanne marathon, where he appeared at the starting line wearing an original t-shirt adorned with a QR code linking to his profile on LinkedIn . A living CV to prove the young man’s determination. “I saw that on Instagram, someone who had managed to get a work-study contract like that. I’ve had around 80 applications sent since February, I’ve stopped counting,” he confides to our colleagues at “L’essentiel”. Because for the moment his approach remains in vain, the refusals keep coming. His t-shirt in Lausanne only brought him curiosity and “views on LinkedIn”, nothing very concrete.
In Switzerland, competition is tough in his sector, even if Vincent highlights his versatility, he who has “an atypical profile” with experience in the army, in commerce and in the hotel industry. He also applied in France but “even there, it’s complicated”. “I’m not discouraged, I see it as a challenge, I’m training online, I’m trying to learn German too,” explains the thirty-year-old who intends to succeed in catching the eye of an employer.
He says he has the support of his partner, his loved ones, even all his colleagues in Luxembourg, who are aware of his personal project. But besides, why wouldn’t his girlfriend come to the Grand Duchy? “Train hassles, road hassles… I haven’t managed to convince her,” smiles Vincent. For the moment, it’s him who goes there “twice a month”, in search of “another original idea” to highlight his profile and hope for a little helping hand from destiny to find a new balance at a few hundred kilometers from the Grand Duchy.
