How to survive in Paris

Yesterday, my first internship in Paris was over. Officially it was not an internship, I was more or less "help". The reason for that is, that if you want to do an internship in France, you would still have to be a student in a University. From this University you would get a "convention de stage" which is just a peace of paper which says that you are a student and are allowed to do an internship. Great. I was a student for a long time - even in France for one year, but after 5 years of law school, and 3 years of leagal training, I´m not anymore and I´m happy about that. The reason for this stupid internship policy is actually honorable, because it´s supposed to protect people like me from sucking corporate companies by not paying well or not willing to hire - rather having cheap interns. BUT as it is very difficult to find a real job in Paris, I would love to be utilized by some evil company - but they don´t let me. So that´s the reason for beeing "help". Since I´m not a student, I can´t be an official intern. Now this leads me to my next internship. I had an interview with a great international law firm and they offered me a 6-month internship. They explained to me, that they could not hire me right away, because the work will be in French law, and I only know German law. So I will need - like 6 months- to get to know the French law. So far so good. I am willing to stoop to working for that law firm, with a great reputation, because I am hoping that they might hire me after the internship. Even if not, it will look good on my resume. BUT you might remember, I´m not a student anymore - and I don´t want to be one either. It was way too late to enroll in a University and now I don´t know if I can start working there. I even made two suggestions how to hire me, without paying too much, like social security and health car - who needs that anyways??? Still haven´t heard from them... If that doesn´t work out, I don´t know what to do. If anyone has a job in paris, please let me know!!
Besides the internship problem, we found out, that French firms pay a lot less than German firms. Living costs in Paris are at lest twice as high as in Germany. That comes out to the situation, that people live in tiny appartments. Our appartment is as big as the appartment Holger rented in Cologne -alone-, but 2,5 times more expensive. We have one kitchen, one bedroom and one livingroom - all rooms are pretty small. Our neighbours have two kids and live in the same size appartment. They don´t have a livingroom - just a kitchen with a sofa and two bedrooms. This was not what I imagined when I was a kind. So guys I tell you, I will not live in Paris forever except we´ll win the lottery and can buy everything.