Carte de sejour . A very long wait

We applied for our CDS back at the end of Oct last year, sending the requested paperwork.
We are still waiting to receive it. I have emailed several times and have received a reply stating they have received it. Has anyone else waited this long? Our Prefecture is Angouleme.

@renard re your enquiry about TdS

We experienced similar delays, and had gloomy thoughts too, but they were wrong and soon put to rest by a personal visit (or two)

Ian, does the Préfecture un Angoulême have a ‘desk’ for étrangers ? Because we found that by far the best way of getting answers to puzzling questions is to pay a visit and enquire personally.

The officials are very busy and have to get your dossier out and look at it, and sometimes ask a question or two by way of clarification, then they can explain if and why there is a hold up.

We always found the officials in St Lo very helpful and considerate, but they deal with hundreds of applications and the system is paper-heavy. Putting a human face to a dossier always seems to draw the milk of human kindness, and it helps if you can speak a bit of French too. :hugs::wink:

I was under the impressioin they’d stopped issuing CS pending Brexit and a new registration system ??

Not all Préfectures seem to have adopted the same procedure, the Préfecture of La Manche has continued to process timely applications (that is to say, those made before 29 March, the original date agreed with the EU for Brexit) to the present time.

Angoulême may well be less sympathetic, it’s a bit of a ‘postcode lottery’ from the differing accounts seen on SF threads. But I still think the best way to find out where one stands is to make a personal visit to the Préfecture, and ask.

Thanks for that encouraging bit of info.
We rarely get into Angouleme but I think any visit would have to be by appointment.There is certainly a dept. For etrangers but not sure about a desk where one could just pop in.

They, Angouleme , had a telephone line going back to last year but about the time we applied they changed the system to just sending in the required docs. There was a response to say they had received them. Since then, nothing.

It’s all about resources and volume of applications, here in 17 the official line is ‘don’t bother applying until Brexit is sorted’ because a) ‘we don’t have the staff’ and b) ‘you’ll have to re-apply again anyway’.

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At least if they have acknowledged receipt of the docs - they (presumably) cannot ask for the lot of them again… but can (hopefully) use what they have to issue the CdS once Brexit is done and dusted. :thinking:

maybe, but applying with a CdS permanent already in place will be a whole different ball game to an initial application as a third country applicant…

No ‘maybe’ about it, existing CdS holders will have to apply for whatever new document is required, the process may be easier but that’s all.

By desk I did of course mean to suggest the department, which is quite big at St Lô, occupying most of the first floor. There are two staffed ‘guichets’ set aside for TdS applicants, and a pull-off ticket set-up so you know your turn when it shows on a screen. Like the cheese counter in a big cremerie.:stuck_out_tongue:

I certainly wouldn’t be presumptuous about anything. :frowning:

I think a post-Brexit check up on one’s circumstances is likely, as they may well have changed (for the worse) due to Brexit, such as a plunging pound and Nebuchadnezzar’s deciding that the ‘undemocratic backstop’ is a reason to stop funding our healthcare.

I wouldn’t put it past him.

Well, but a CdS (not sure what CdJ is) doesn’t give you any rights as such. It simply confirms the rights you have acquired. If you take 2 people in identical circumstances, both having acquired the right to reside but one has obtained a CdS and one hasn’t, it doesn’t mean that the one who has got a CdS has any more of a right than the one who doesn’t.

The process of getting the new documentmay simply involve producing your superseded CdS together with a set of recent justificatifs to show your situation hasn’t changed, whereas a person who never obtained a CdS will have to do what you did for your initial application and collect the full 5 years papertrail. But at the end of the day, it’s your history of living in France that will decide your rights, not the methods by which you prove it.

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Thank you all for your response. It was getting a bit concerned about the lack of info whilst appreciating they, the Prefecture, will be inundated. Hopefully we will get some clarity soon.With events in the UK I would imagine we all feel a bit out on a limb.

a typo Anna. now corrected :wink:

We must have been lucky. We got ours in less than 7 weeks in Le Mans.

Wow, is there not so many Brits there?
Our dept has a large Brit population so that might be the difference

There is a large British community here, maybe not as large as yours, but still large. Some others here have had to wait longer but apparently our paperwork was impeccable. We helped a couple of our friends with their applications and they got theirs in 8 weeks. Just lucky as I said.

I sent all that was required by them. It was quite a bundle!’

Big brit. population in the Dordogne. CdS applications for rendezvous by internet (but very very chocabloc). After our rendezvous (and they agreed to my wife being there and applying at the same time, even though she didn’t have an appointment) we got our CdSs in 11 days. Very fortunate.