You can get certificates for anyone, I think. If you cannot get birth certificates for other people then certificates of the dead would be unavailable to anyone ! I have obtained birth, marriage and death certificates for my parents and birth and marriage certificates for myself. I was unable to obtain a death certificat for myself…
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Thank you for all this valuable info. I too am wading through it all and feeling quite sick at the thought of getting all this together 
Is anyone on here an official translator? Do you have any ideas as to where to find one? Thanks, merci.
Lisa … look at the post 3 up from this… Framboise Biki gives some info… and your Prefecture will probably have a list too… 
Your local tribunal de grande instance will have an up-to-date list of officially sanctioned translators. Be aware, however, that quality varies, my ex-husband decided he needed an interpreter when we went to see the juge aux affaires familiales and it was actually rather embarrassing as his not very good French was considerably better than hers. I ended up having to do the interpreting as there were some appalling mistranslations and it was a complete shambles and a waste of everybody’s time.
I know someone who suffered a grave miscarriage of justice due to the inadequacy of the Translator provided by the Court at his Trial…
It turned out to be such a horror story and moved me so much… that I make a point of going over everything… from this angle and that… using different words/phrases… to ensure we are all understanding each other… (even though I only do very low-key and on-the-spot translations etc… I would hate to drop someone in the mire).
I hope that you have since discovered that this is illegal under EU law and there is an EU web site that will deal with this situation.
Yes, but there’s no point in pushing it, and to be honnest I haven’t got the time either. Their point is perfectly valid - what on earth is the point in giving a carte de séjour to somebody who’s situation is going to change (brexit) so rendering the carte invalide/worthless! 
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It establishes fact without further documentation, and ,who knows, our hosts may decide that it us not worth the effort to change what has been granted.
My thinking is:
Person one has lived, worked, paid taxes etc in France for 6 years, has all the paperwork to prove it, and takes it along to the Préfecture and gets a carte de séjour, even though he is not currently required to have one, because he thinks it will give him extra rights post brexit.
Person two has lived, worked, paid taxes etc in France for 6 years, has all the paperwork to prove it, but hasn’t applied for a carte de séjour because he is not currently required to have one (maybe he has a hectic life, doesn’t want to waste the prefecture’s time, or maybe he’s not even aware that such things exist since he’s never had to have one).
Now I’m relying on the EU’s sense of fairness here (I don’t think TM has a sense of fairness), in view of everything they’ve said about the need to ensure people’s lives aren’t turned upside down etc. And as long as they hold to that, I don’t see how they can in all conscience treat Person One any differently from Person Two, since in effect their situations are identical. It may be that Person Two will be told to apply for a CdS and Person One will be told that he doesn’t need to as he already has one. But I don’t see that they will consider it fair to discriminate against Person Two simply for not having obtained something he was not required to have.
Thoughts, anyone?
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nailed it in one, Anna
I thought I had got everything together… but was finally stumped on a critical document in my family tree… after small panic, I decided that enough is enough…not prepared to waste any more time on it.
Our lives are rolling along just fine… we are totally integrated into our Community and I refuse to worry any more… I’m with Anna on this.
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I still have a long way to go in collecting all the documents and ensuring they are all correct. However, I have uncovered some critical facts that I think I should pass on in the hope that they will help others. I thought I would have a look at my préfecture site (Ariège) just to see which office I would be going to in order to submit the dossier once complete. I discovered that Ariège and a cluster of other adjacent départements have delegated this function to Haute-Garonne, with a special office in Toulouse.
This in itself is not a problem, but it is just the beginning of the fun. For Haute-Garonne, you have to go on line and obtain a fixed appointment for an interview when you will be able to submit the whole dossier. Again, not so bad, although I have tried a few times with the reply “no dates currently available”.
They also insist that you download their information and guidance notes … which turn out to be significantly different from the national ones to which there is, I think, a link on this site. Just a few points to give you an idea -
- 3 copies of the main form, not two, and must be version 2
- 3 photographs, not two
- domicile proof by EDF facture only, nothing else acceptable
- quite different rules on proof of income and assets
- dossier must include Attestation de Sécurité Sociale
- no invitation to include a page on your conribution to French life, Associations etc. up to now
- dossier must include a signed copy of La Charte des Droits et Devoirs du Citoyen Français
… and many more.
The full impact only hits when you see the massive red print on page 1 of their notes, warning that the smallest deviation or omission will result in automatic rejection of the document, with your going back to the tail of the queue. They even state… and this takes the biscuit …that they will automatically reject any dossier where any of the papers are not presented IN THE RIGHT ORDER. (I have had separate confirmation of this having happened - it sounds like the French bureaucracy which we used to be warned about but which I personally have never suffered from).
SO … I strongly suggest you check which préfecture you will be dealing with, and which set of rules they will be applying. Sorry, it’s no good saying this is nonsense and unfair. It’s the way it is and any complaint will definitely merit a Gallic shrug.
Bon courage to all fellow applicants
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Let’s hope TM (well I hope it’s not but I suppose it will be) doesn’t see fit to be a bloody difficult woman about Barnier’s draft propositions, which are pretty much what we all hoped for I think:
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I absolutely agree that it would not be fair to discriminate between the two an of course the right of permanent residence is obtained automatically and not something you have to apply for, but there are still some differences.
Person 1 has shown that they have met the requirements, whereas Person 2 believes that they have met them. Unless you test your evidence then it is always possible to have misunderstood the requirements.
Secondly it is possible that it will become more difficult to obtain the CdS in the future, not because the requirements change, but just because the interpretation of what evidence is required to demonstrate it changes. It is clear that there are already differences between departments in the way that they treat applications for CdS so I guess that variations over time are also possible.
Personally I do not anticipate any problems with this as the EU position sounds very positive and also because the French documentation makes it clear that you can’t lose your right of residence just because you no longer meet the requirements to obtain it and for me being an EU citizen is simply one of those requirements.
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Well yes, but I was hypothesising that person 1 and person 2 were in exactly the same situation and both met the requirements. If a different person, say Person 3, doesn’t meet the requirements, then that’s a different issue. My point was that if you have met the requirements then you have met the requirements. A cds simply confirms the rights you have acquired, it doesn’t actually give you any rights you haven’t earned. So not having a cds shouldn’t take away any rights.
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A letter to the President might work wonders, but this was M. Hollond who had committed himself to allow us to stay. Might be different with M. Macron.
Hi everyone,
I’m just about ready to put all my documents in an envelope and send off to the Prefecture in Montpellier…but I have a bit of a dumb question and also a sensible question. In order to save time, because of my long list of previous addresses and previous jobs, I completed the CERFA form online and then printed it out…my dumb question is - is this allowed or does the form have to be handwritten?
Also, regarding parents’ birth certificates - neither of my parents has a birth certificate as they were refugees settling in the UK from the Ukraine after WW2 and had no documentation available. I do have their UK marriage certificate though, which I’ve added to my dossier. Anyone else in a similar situation? I believe that I can write an explanatory letter to explain why the documents are not available.
Thanks for your help and good luck to everyone with their applications!
Hi Tonia,
I also filled my form in online and then printed it. No problem about it being accepted. Of course, you have to make sure you don’t forget to sign and date the printed copy!
Regarding the parental marriage certificate, this is sufficient according to the rules for getting your dossier accepted. However, they will almost certainly request the parental birth certificates at a later stage for the purpose of drawing up your full French birth certificate which will be the first official document you receive. But before that stage in the process, you may wish to raise your particular problem when you meet them for your interview.
Hope this can be of help.
Perhaps they just want to make sure you are not an “unsavoury character” before letting you loose in the Prefecture…
Hi Bob
Thanks so much for your reply ! Very helpful - I really appreciate it.