05 September 2019

Renewing French residence cards (2)

Read part 1 of this series here.

On the Blois préfecture's web site describing the resident's card renewal process, we saw this instruction: Dans les deux mois qui précèdent la date d'expiration de votre carte de résident, vous devez consulter [le site web de votre préfecture] pour connaître les modalités d'accueil pratiquées par la préfecture compétente. In English, that says that during the two-month period before the expiration date on your residence card, you should consult your local préfecture's web site to see how the process of turning in the required forms and documents is organized.

I think some préfectures accept applications by mail. It turns out that ours doesn't. Everything has to be submitted in person, and you have to have appointment arranged in advance. That meant we would need to drive up to Blois (it takes about an hour) to turn in the application. If we didn't have all the documents we needed, the application would be rejected. We'd have to drive back home, do some more work, get another appointment, and drive back up to Blois again, so we needed to be thorough and careful.

Our residence cards were set to expire on September 10. That meant we were supposed to figure out in July what all the requirements were. Well, we started well before that, and in June (a month early) we decided to try to make an appointment for later in the summer. You have to make the appointment on-line, on the préfecture's web site. Walt looked up the page, and he quickly learned that the first available appointments were for September 3.

That seemed to me to be cutting it very close, because they don't just hand you a card while you're there at the préfecture for your appointment. It can take several weeks, if not a month or more for the application to be processed and the card to be printed and laminated. Only then do you get a notification by mail that you can go back to the préfecture in Blois and pick it up. I decided to pick up the phone and call the préfecture to see if there was any way to make an appointment earlier. I wasn't sure anyone would answer the phone...

Here's today's North Carolina postcard. That skiff with the black outboard motor was the "ferry" we had taken over to Cape Lookout
on that day in 2002. It was only about a four-mile cruise. I was getting nervous about the weather, but all went well.

The woman who finally answered the phone was less than helpful. She said, basically, that she didn't understand why people (meaning, of course, foreigners) thought they could do everything at the last minute. That set the tone — Walt and I were actually starting the process a month early. We're busy up here at the préfecture, the woman said, and the next available appointments are in September.

I asked her if, when we turned in our papers on September 3 (assuming they wouldn't be rejected), we would be given a temporary card or some other document (it's called a récépissé) that would prove to anybody who wanted to see the residence card — which would have expired by then — that our application had been turned in and was being processed. We didn't want to be considered illegal.

No, the woman on the phone said, we don't give out anything like that. You're on your own, in other words. Then she said: Really, monsieur, you don't even need a residence card. You can move about freely in France without one — there's no problem. I couldn't believe she'd tell me that. I told her that the préfecture ought to revise its web site to tell applicants that they needed to set up an appointment not two months in advance but four or even six months. I can't do anything about that, she told me. Come in for your appointment on September 3. I thanked her coldly, but politely, and hung up.

What a strange and stressful summer it has been. First, there was the new bathroom, meaning chaos in the house and people in and out all the time. Then we had three separate heat waves, with temperatures outside up to 100ºF, sometimes higher, and up to 95 in the house. That was exhausting. Then I had a colonoscopy in July — that required four trips to Blois and back. Luckily, the result was good. But I've been stressed out for months, mentally and physically. Now, on top of all this, Hurricane Dorian is moving up the U.S. coast toward the place where my family and so many friends live...

Read part 3 of this series here.

34 comments:

  1. I gather you travel with your American passport when going to the states; so, when you come back you don't have to show your residency card, do you? How many times did you have to show the last one since you got it? I know, better safe than sorry. There are problems with any kind of administration.

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    1. I have only an American passport, so that's the only one I can show at the airport. Which passport do you travel with? I've been asked for my resident's card at CDG airport at least once, maybe twice, over the past few years as I was leaving for the U.S. At two different U.S. airports, airline employees have looked at my ticket and informed that unless I have a visa, I'm not allowed to fly back to France without a return ticket. I show them my French residency card and that satisfies them.

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    2. Never renewed my French passport and didn't travel outside the US until I was naturalised and got an American passport which I have been using ever since as a dual citizen. In 1999, I planed to stay six months in France, and the man at Dulles airport said I might have problems not having a visa which, fortunately, it turned out never was the case. As soon as I was in Paris, I immediately got a new French ID card which I might have had to show only once, if I recall correctly. I never stayed in France any longer than six months, so I never had any problem.

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    3. An American can stay in France for 3 months without a visa, as a tourist. Not 6 months. Doesn't the airline staff question your plan to stay for 6 months without a visa?

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    4. I was on the impression that a tourist visa was good for six months and that a visa de longue durée was required after that for a longer stay. Now it seems that kind of visa is required after three months. That means that if I didn't have the dual citizenship, I would have to get the longue durée visa every year! Such a pain!

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    5. I remember that one year when Frank was going to come with you to Paris, he was upset that he would have to get a visa de long séjour if he wanted to stay for more than three months. I think he stayed in Paris only three months that year.

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  2. Il y a tant de progrès à faire dans toutes ces administrations... courage à vous !

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  3. En fin de compte, tout s'est bien passé. Mais on a l'impression qu'ils veulent nous mettre des bâtons dans les roues chaque fois qu'ils peuvent.

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  4. I probably would have panicked when I saw that September 3 date. Agreed, best to have your papers all in order, in the current global political disarray. My sister, who is married to and has children with a Canadian, traveled outside CA and her US passport expired while she was gone. They wouldn't let her back in and she had to go to the embassy/consulate/whatever in Seattle and throw herself on the mercy of the court, so to speak, to get home. She is now the proud holder of a Canadian passport.

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    1. That would have been a very stressful experience. As for the Sept. 3 date, I did kind of panic, for a number of reasons. I'll be writing about that over the next few days.

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  5. I feel your pain. As difficult as the process is, I don't think you will have gendarmes knocking at your door and arranging to put you on a plane to the US. There seems to be a lot to admire about France, but the bureaucracy doesn't seem to be one of them.

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    1. You haven't heard the good parts yet — very positive.

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  6. The current Dorian reports are carrying bad news for Morehead. I hope your sister has made the decision to evacuate this time. I think about her every time there's an update from the Hurricane Center.

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    1. Oh lord. It probably won't be as bad as they're saying. I hope.

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  7. Good Morning. All is good here for now. Cape Carteret area is getting slammed but we are ok. Going to get this computer in the house and get out of this camper. Wind picking up some now.

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  8. You have my sympathies (on the subject of stress). I find that once I passed age 65, everything began to appear twice (three times?) as stressful as it would have even a few years earlier. It's a full time job just to stay calm!

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    1. You've got that right. Stress increases, wisdom is elusive. Thanks for your message.

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  9. Unfortunately, the episode with that lady at the prefecture is a poster child for some of the horror stories we often hear about French bureaucracy. So sorry to hear about that. But I'm sure it'll turn out well. Sometimes I think these French government bureaucrats derive a perverse pleasure in placing obstacles on your path or in telling you why certain things cannot be done. Many years ago, when I was an assistant d'anglais at the Lycee Hoche in Versailles, I encountered a similar situation when I went to the "intendant" of the lycee (the manager who oversaw the physical plant, among other duties) and asked him if there was any way to turn on the heat. It was an unusually cold September that year. His answer was a classic example of "bureaubabble": "Monsieur," he answered coldly, "l'hiver administratif commence le premier octobre." I couldn't believe what I had heard...and then I said to myself "Only in France....."

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    1. My memory of Pars is that the central heat was turned on on Oct. 15 whether you needed it or not, and was turned off on April 15, whether you needed it or not.

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    2. Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps!

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    3. Two days ago, I had to deal with people at GRDF and EDF. You would not believe how pleasant, helpful and patient they were to oblige and make sure that what I requested was done and well done. I even had a follow up phone call today! In this case, une hirondelle a fait le printemps.

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    4. I had to look up hirondelle. Apparently it means swallow or catamaran. I'm going with swallow.

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  10. STRESS!!!! UGH!!! This morning I decided to research how eczema (my new issue!) spreads as I noticed a new patch of dry skin on the palm side of my right hand. (I have several dry patches on my hands that come and then after a few days of applying RX ointment they disappear.) STRESS is the reason that I found on WebMD was likely the cause - as no scientific evidence of why eczema lands on different places. UGH... I try to remain calm and not let things get to me... This never happened until a few months ago. I am not pleased with this age-thing!!!

    Keep the faith, Ken. We are all going through a period in our lives where events are beyond our control - no matter what we do to try to circumvent them.

    Mary in Oregon

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    1. Mary, thanks. Sorry for your stress, and mine. Old age is not for sissies, they say.

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  11. The only time anybody has wanted my residency card has been at airports. Even when I've taken it out as ID, people ask for my driver's license instead.
    Mine doesn't expire until 2025, but it's good to stay on top of things like the amount of time needed. I really want to apply for French citizenship but I'm not in a position to go back to the US for the necessary papers.

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    1. I was not allowed to request my mother's South Carolina birth certificate as long as she was still living. She had to do it herself. In other words, I filled out the forms and she signed them when I was in North Carolina for a visit. I didn't want her to have to do all that work — too confusing. I mailed in the form, with instructions to send the birth certificate to my mother's address. I was still there when it arrived. Then I had to send it back to Columbia for an apostille. Big hassle.

      Walt couldn't get certified copies of his parents' New York State birth certificates, only non-certified copies labeled "for genealogical purposes only", without a court order! He might have had to stay in New York for a month to get such an order from a judge. Non-certified copies cannot be notarized by apostille. Bigger hassle.

      Just examples.

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    2. As Anonymous would say, Only in ghe US!

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  12. I would have been frantic all summer; glad to surmise that all is well after all. And thank you for the new (to me) idiom: "mettre des bâtons dans les roues."

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    1. I think I have been frantic in my own way all summer, Chris. Mais tout est bien qui finit bien, as we say.

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  13. That "no heat until October 1st" sounds to me like a NYC landlord. No matter if it even snowed in September, you got no heat until October. And then it often blasted so much that you had to open a window to keep from frying.

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  14. I didn't have time to comment this morning, but I'm back this evening to read all of the discourse here :) Thinking of you and your family and friends. I'll also be interested to read the continued recounting of this residency card renewal process. Oy vey! (Or however you spell that ;) )

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    1. Thanks, Judy. Just finished a long post on resident-alien status vs. citizenship from our point of view this year.

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