24 September 2019

The resident's card (anti)climax

The trip to Blois to pick up our resident's cards at the préfecture de police de Loir-et-Cher was fairly anticlimactic. The important moments came when we learned on September 3 that we would be given temporary resident's permits to extend the validity of our old cards, which were set to expire on September 10. We'd remain legal aliens, at least until December. The other important moment was when we received notification last Thursday that our cards were ready for pick-up.

Yesterday, we arrived at at the préfecture in Blois at about 9:15 — the drive took a little less than an hour. We easily found parking in one of the worst-designed parking lots I've ever seen. After after paying a couple of euros for a ticket that was good until 10:30, we walked across the lot to the building where French immigration agents process residence permit (carte de séjour) applications. There were a dozen or so people in line, waiting to see one of the two receptionists on duty.

The wait was short. But it had only started, because the receptionist who looked at our papers just gave us a ticket with a number on it and directed us to the waiting room. Walt got E815 and I got E816. We took a seat and joined a crowd of about 50 people waiting for their number to come up on one of the two big computer screens in the room. The number being displayed when we sat down was E806. We sat for 10 or 15 minutes before number E807 came up on the display.

This is the entrance to the lobby of the préfecture's office for immigrants and legal aliens.

Walt did a quick calculation and figured that if each person called in spent 5 to 10 minutes with the immigration agent, he would be called at about 10:30. That meant our parking would expire and we might end up having to pay a fine for overstaying our welcome. So I went out and bought a second ticket, one that would be valid until 11:30. It only took a minute or two, and my number wasn't close to coming up on the screen any time soon.

Walt's calculation was exactly right. His number was called at 10:30. He walked a few steps down a hall to what was called Guichet 8 ("window" 8), which was not actually a window but a door into a very small room, just big enough for two chairs. A woman sat behind a desk with a computer and a stack of new or renewed cartes de séjours were ready to be handed out. Three minutes after Walt walked down the hall, he was back. It was done.

My number came up a minute or so later. I too went to Guichet 8 — a sign on the door said Asiles, meaning it was normally used for processing asylum-seekers, I guess. We had been told to bring our convocation (summons), passport, expired or expiring resident's card, the temporary card we had been issued earlier, and our paper proving we had paid 269 euro "tax stamp" that we had paid on line to cover the fee for the renewal. The immigration agent looked at the documents, shuffled through the many cards that were ready to hand out — mine was the next-to-last one in the pile — gave me my passport back, my new carte de résident,  and asked me to sign a paper attesting that I had received it. That was all there was to it.

I examined the card. On it I read CARTE DE RÉSIDENT PERMANENT. I asked the agent if that meant it never needed to be renewed again. I was surprised when she said she didn't know. She had to call her supervisor to get that information. An older woman came in and told me that the permanent card would expire in 10 years, just as the plain carte de résident would. So I don't know what in the world the word PERMANENT on my card actually means. I guess I'll find out in 10 years. Maybe the renewal process will be different. Walt got the plain carte de résident, so we'll both be renewing in 2029 and we'll see if the rules are different or not.

Thanks to Google maps for this image of the préfecture and its strange parking lot.

About that parking lot: you can see it in the picture above, along with the entrance (labeled as the Préfecture de Loir-et-Cher on the screenshot) for foreigners and people registering their cars or getting a driver's license. The parking lot has narrow curvy lanes with head-in parking all along them. Spaces are not marked, so in places two cars take up enough room for three cars. There are trees growing along the lanes as well, making maneuvering tricky. And some of the lanes are dead ends, with barely enough room to turn your car around  and get back out if you haven't found an empty space to park in.

In addition, instead of paying for the time you've left your car in the lot upon departure, upon arrival you have to estimate how much time to pay for. That's why I had to go back out and buy another ticket to extend our parking time — when we arrived, we had no idea how long we would need to be there. The town or préfecture must make a lot of extra money from people who have to overpay in order to avoid having to pay a fine.

29 comments:

  1. La bureaucratie dans toute sa beauté. In the old days you would say la préfecture DU Loir-et-Cher, now it is DE for unknown reason. My good friend would say, évolution du langage;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, the French language is renewed and improved daily!

      Delete
    2. I just did a quick check on French governement sites and I found:

      Préfecture de Loir-et-Cher
      Préfecture d'Indre-et-Loire
      Préfecture du Loiret
      Préfecture de l'Indre
      Préfecture de la Seine-Maritime
      Préfecture du Calvados
      Préfecture de l'Essonne

      Standardization...

      Delete
    3. New improved, ha! ha! ha!. The more it's improved the more gobbledygook it gets!

      I wonder what the English syntax' role is in the pending demise of the French language?

      Delete
    4. What is interesting in your liste is that only LE Loir-et-Cher has evolved. The new, improved should be De Loiret ou DE Calvados! Does it mean Loir-et-Cher is so much ahead of its time!

      Delete
    5. Why wouldn't you say la préfecture de l'Indre-et-Loire? They put la prefecture de la Seine-Maritime on the official S-M web page.

      Delete
    6. The contraction of de and an article works only on the masculine. Thus de le is contracted as du. For example, the river Cher is masculine, so you have département de le Cher where DE LE is contracted into DU. The river Indre is féminine, so you have département de la Indre where DE LA becomes DE L' because the first letter of Indre is a vowel.
      Aussi, dire le département de Loir-et-Cher est un barbarisme.

      Delete
    7. But if the name comports two different rivers, shouldn't it be DES ?! Or is the underlying thinking is that Loir-et-Cher is a single name, rather than a combination of two?

      Delete
  2. The card expires, the right to residency doesn't.

    A similar evolution has happened in English with regard to government offices. They used to be the Office OF such and such, now they are the Office FOR such and such.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susan what you say is interesting because the shift from OF to FOR happens the same way in French. One example, we used to say merci de ..., now you'll see merci pour... which sounds more English than French!
      Also dans and sur. Dans une île is now Sur une île! Why?

      Delete
    2. Sur une île sounds like the English "on an island."

      Delete
    3. The plain carte de résident is the same: the card must be renewed, but the right to residence doesn't expire unless you've become a threat to "l'ordre public". So I still don't know the difference. Does your card say CARTE DE RÉSIDENT PERMANENT on the front side?

      I keep telling CHM that all living human languages evolve and change over time, but he just doesn't like the idea.

      Delete
    4. CHM, I hear people say "Merci pour le chocolat" but "Merci d'avoir apporté du chocolat". De goes with verbs and pour goes with nouns. And it bothers me too that people say "sur une île".

      Delete
    5. Ken, For me, merci de works for verbs and nouns, as in Merci de vos bons vœux!. Merci pour sounds like an anglicisme. As far as I know you don't have a Thank you of... Do you?

      Delete
    6. I think expressions like Merci de vos bons vœux, Merci de votre visite, or Merci de votre réponse are expression figées that are used in very formal language, or in writing, which is always more formal than the spoken form.

      Grévisse gives examples of merci pour... followed by nouns from the writings of Stendahl, Dumas, Michelet, Martin du Gard, Giraudoux, Claudel, Bernanos, and l'Académie. He even gives an example from the 17th century by a certain Sév. — Madame de Sévigné?

      Delete
    7. Interesting that these giants of French literature used the expression merci pour. I still prefer the use of de. As far as the expressions you mention, I don't think they are really figées, but just the right way to say. L'expression merci d'être venu would look and sound very awkward if it were merci pour être venu!

      Delete
    8. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything like merci pour être venu. Grévisse says: Si le complément [de merci] est un infinitif, la construction avec de est la seule possible... People say merci pour when the following word (le complément) is a noun.

      Delete
  3. Maybe the parking lot was intended to be a metaphor for the civil service experience inside? The exterior of the building looks quite attractive in the aerial view. Glad you got your cartes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point. Both outdoor and indoor labyrinths.

      Delete
  4. Ken, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to highjack this post with my grammar diversion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't mind. I'm not only a food, cooking, and wine nerd, but also a grammar nerd, as you know. I wish you or someone else could stop language from evolving, but nobody has or has ever had that power, not even the Académie.

      Delete
  5. Well, GREAT news that you have your cards in hand!
    Do you know the reason why you were given a permanent card, but Walt was not? Is it age?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, age. If you've already had a resident's card for ten years and it needs to be renewed, the rules are: if you are at least 60 years old, your new card will be permanent. Whatever that means. Walt has had a carte de résident for ten years, but he is three months shy of being 60 years old, so he doesn't qualify. I'm not sure what difference it makes, if both cards have to be renewed in 2029.

      Delete
    2. Walt has a long wait to be permanent lol! I like the way language changes.

      Delete
  6. Après avoir mûrement réfléchi, je suis arrivé à la conclusion que dire département de Loir-et-Cher est une faute grammaticale avérée, puisque Loir est un nom masculin. Supposons un département fictif Loire-et-Cher. Loire est un nom féminin et, là, je pense qu'on peut dire préfecture de Loire-et-Cher, même si Cher est masculin, comme on dit département de Seine Maritime, d'autant que la première lettre de Loire est une consonne). Qui est donc à l'origine de cette erreur? Le français n'est pas une langue facile.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Would you say la préfecture de Somme?

      Delete
    2. No, because I think the addition of the féminine article is called for. But, if this département was made of two rivers like Somme-et-Sambre or Somme-et-Escaut then the "de" can be used, I think. I'd say la préfecture de la Somme, but la préfecture de Somme-et-Sambre.

      Delete
    3. There's so much variation in usage when it comes to the names of all the préfectures in France that it's difficult to see a pattern. Some examples from the official gouv.fr site:

      la préfecture d'Indre-et-Loire (mais) de l'Indre
      la préfecture de la Seine-Maritime, de la Charente-Maritime, de la Haute-Loire
      la préfecture de Loir-et-Cher, de Maine-et-Loire, d'Eure-et-Loir
      la prefecture de Tarn-et-Garonne, de Lot-et-Garonne
      la préfecture du Lot
      la préfecture de la Gironde, de la Somme, de la Haute-Vienne,
      la préfecture des Bouches-du-Rhône, des Côtes-d'Armor

      Maybe I should have written a doctoral dissertation on this subject!

      Related: I read this on Wikipédia about le (la?) Maine-et-Loire

      On dit et on écrit « le Maine-et-Loire » ; le nom du département a donc connu une masculinisation consacrée par l’usage alors que la règle aurait souhaité, la Maine et la Loire étant toutes deux féminines, que le nom « Maine-et-Loire » le fût également. Le masculin vient peut-être, par contamination, de la province du Maine (chef-lieu Le Mans), voisine. Comme tous les noms de départements formés de deux termes liés par « et », à l’inverse des autres noms de départements qui s’emploient avec l’article dans les compléments du nom et à la suite de la préposition « dans », on doit dire et écrire « département de Maine-et-Loire » ou « en Maine-et-Loire », et non « département du Maine-et-Loire » ou « dans le Maine-et-Loire », même si, là encore, « département du Maine-et-Loire » ou « dans le Maine-et-Loire » sont régulièrement utilisés.

      Delete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?