France has Napoleonic law, which is a lot less freer than English common law. I wanted more freedom and a lot more space. I was tired of living in a giant noisy city and I was retiring.

SE Ohio has the warmest winters without all the garden bugs you get further south. Land is cheap here, it was just a thousand an acre, I have many acres and am mostly off grid, still tied for emergencies.

One of my sons became an US citizen way before I did so I visited his home in Columbus OH many times. Got used to space and freedom. Columbus has good seafood luckily, I would have missed that.