They are not part of the EU but there are a number of agreements between the EU and Switzerland and in particular EU citizens don't need a visa to stay there for more than 3 months.

And French and Italian (and Spanish and Portuguese for that matter) are really similar languages, most of my Italian friends could speak French quite well after only 3 months (meaning they were able to deal with everyday life and read good size books with no difficulty).

To work in an IT capacity in europe you need a very good grasp of the local language unless it's explicitly an english speaking role. Native english speakers are treated very differently than everyone else, particularly in large international organisations.

I've been moving around in Europe a lot and I've been reading the job boards for years. You're either english speaking or you know the native language extremely well. Otherwise your odds of landing an IT job outside of the UK are next to zero.

Has any of your itialian friends actually worked in France in an IT or other qualified role?

Well they were computer science students who went to my university for 6 months during their master degree...

Now as to the working environment in Europe, well since I moved to Japan straight after graduating, I haven't really worked in Europe (save for an internship in Germany where the work went well enough although my german is far from perfect). So, I can't say exactly how it is...

As for racism, it exists, but actually my friends from Martinique (who are french citizens) had a much harder time with it because they are black than friends from Asia or Europe.

French, Italian and Spanish are all "Romance" languages, derived from the Latin spoken in the Roman Empire. They are easy to learn for anyone who already speaks one of them.

These languages share many word stems but the grammar is different and the pronunciation too, particularly in the case of french. So opportunity driven migration within Europe is not easy.

Sure, learning french is easier for an italian speaker than learning swedish. But learning swedish should be super simple for anyone speaking english and german. It's not that easy.

But migration within Europe is not only hampered by language. Many countries just don't like non-english speaking foreigners, no matter how well educated they may be.