Blimey!
Tracy - my OH's family name in Invernizzi (Italian Swiss) and that gets them, Milne they do no problem. The I-M version stops them dead in their tracks... As for four of us with three family names, another book to write there
until somebody potentially makes real extra work possible, then they'll get you done and gone as fast as possible
@Brian - the French have enough problems with 'Thurling' imagine having to spell and explain 'Kirkbright-Thurling', especially with a name like 'Chiara'
Yeah Andrew, you've hit the nail right on the head! the more problems they make, the longer everything takes, the more they can justify being needed to cover the work load!
as professionals we have our own names and children have both (hyphenated), now that gets us grief...
As far as I am aware, you stay on your parents livret until you get married and officially create your own family unit. If your OH is not married to you, you are not officially recognised as part of the family, just the father!
My friends who got married last weekend had no intention of getting married but had a great deal of property issues that needed resolving. They took various forms of legal advice but in the end they found that the best option was to get married, amazing but true in this day and age.
Yes Brian, sounds remarkably like one of my sister-in-laws (the only fonctionnaire in the family) and boy do we give her some stick!
makes sense, we have one which as you say makes life easier at times but it seems weird that they refuse to put me on the correct page as father of the familly. Having said that I've never made a thing about it or asked to be "more officially" included/entered!
Right Andrew, except that when one gets cross and begins to demand to speak to somebody senior and they all realise that they might get some extra WORK, they then make sure it happens fast enough to get it out of their nice sedate lives.
@ Andrew :-)
Yes, we were married in our local Mairie and it was given to us immediately after the ceremony with our wedding certificate.
You're the first non-French I've come across who have one, interesting to know, so all I need to do is marry my OH and they'll stick me in the livret, I'll exist...!
Tracy - was it your Mairie that issued it?
interestingly enough, it also has space to register our deaths and up to 10 kids! :-)
I've got a 'Livret de Famille' my husband and I were given ours when we got married in France, neither of us are French though. When I went into hospital to have the kids, I had to had it over and it was given back with the birth certificates, with each child duly registered in it.
Have to say it makes life much simpler, as does having 10 year 'titres de sejour' even though they are not obligatory.
the point is that it keeps an enormous number of fonctionnaires in work, at least I can't see any other point to it, and of course that they don't know that it could be so much easier and simpler, they don't even believe that's possible. Believe me the entirety of franch family and friends just stare at me in disbelief when I explain how simple things are elsewhere!
mmm maybe thats where I go wrong - I don't ever shout. I do speak reasonable french so that's never an issue, it just seems to be the big bourges black hole that's the problem
We got our Cartes Vitales within weeks of applying. Both UK born daughters are on mine, passports and photocopies of birth certificates that we had certified as bona fidé by our maire (not originals) and an invasion of two parents bearing all forms, etc and that was that. Livret de famille is only possible where at least one person was born in France, probably traceable back to the Neanderthals in Lascaux etc, but not for my wife's Swiss self or my 'British' self and thus children inelligible anyway.
The most important bit about dealing with RSI is that your French is articulate when you shout, even scream, at them and moreso when it is in hearing distance of other members of the public in one of their offices. Since 'outburst' numero deux we now have no problems at all.
thanks Andrew - I'll just have to keep sending off the same form until someone processes it rather than putting it in their too difficult pile. Costs a fortune in recommandee postage! What's the point?!