Are there any serious movie lovers here, someone who has a good selection of film types under their belt?

I thought I might as well use my old thread to ask here.  I'm trying to find a film I don't know the name of, and to make matters worse, I don't know the names of any of the people who starred in it.  I know for a fact that the film is French, and it's at least 6 years old because I've been able to work that out by various means.  It centred around two girls, around twenty years old I reckon.  One of the girls (the main girl) was a bit tomboyish, she had very short black hair, and her friend had longer lighter coloured hair (I think).  I believe it was set in Paris (but could be wrong), and either one (or both) of these girls worked in some sort of factory.  I think they were working on sewing machines or something like that.  In fact, I think that's probably how they came to meet, become friends, and decide to rent a flat together.  It was quite a dreary-looking/feeling film, and by dreary I mean it felt very 'real life' and it seemed as if the film was made in such a way as to not be specifically anything, if that makes any sense at all.  It was dark but not a horror, it was a serious 'real life' sort of film but with a strange feel to it.

It's just one of those things that has stuck in my mind, and whenever I think about films I almost always start trying to figure out a way to find it again; that damn film, what's it called?  I only ever saw it once and it was at least 6 years ago, shown on Film4 as part of a 'French Film Season' no doubt.  But it's not just for this specific film I want to know about it, it's because I want to know who the director is, because for such a generic film to stick in my mind like that, I'm pretty sure I'll take a liking to any other films the same director has produced.  For some reason it felt very different to other films, that's probably why it's stuck in my mind like it has.

But yup, tried everything, even to the point I went browsing through every French film sold on Amazon and still didn't come across the bloody thing, and that did surprise me because it seems unbelievable that such a good film would not be on their catalogue (it must be).  I've even tried searching photos of French actresses, hoping that if I spot the tomboyish girl with the short black hair, I'd be able to locate the film by her name, but even that failed to turn-up anything useful.

So anyway, maybe someone here is into French films or foreign films in general, and if you are, and you know what I'm talking about, please speak-up because I've been trying to locate this one for years now and it's just been an absolute waste of time so far - very frustrating.