We had our RDV at préfecture yesterday. Rather a different experience from other reported here, and made us laugh.
Our préfecture is normally quite busy, but it was deserted. We arrived at main entrance and receptionist looked up and addressed us by name “ahh, Monsieur et Madame X?” and directed us to the main office. Also deserted, so we stood there for about 3 seconds before a women opened a guichet “Ah, Monsieur et Madame X?”… we approached gave her our dossiers, she removed the old CdS and new photo from each one, said our cards would be sent in a couple of weeks, handed back the dossiers, told us to have a nice afternoon and goodbye.
All in all, including cleaning hands, I think we were there for 3 or 4 minutes!
Sounds perfect! When my partner went last week, there were 2 guichets - one labelled BREXIT and the other labelled with something implying “everything else” . It was all very jolly as she apologised again for the mix-up previously and said that she’d not come across a situation before with 2 Brits with identical names living within the same departement (never mind only 30 miles from each other).
It does all explain why things are taking so long, if there’s only one lady doing all this and thousands of Brits to get through in Manche. She’d got to the end of the "E"s for the permanent CdS’s so heaven knows how long it will take to get to the “R”'s on a 5 year one
There used to be (maybe still is?) the Aliens’ Registrations Office in Holborn in London, and I do still have my grandparents’ alien registration forms… not really seen it used in France, but then maybe I don’t hang out with that many aliens.
Just information - Dept 23 - applied in Oct 2019 via the initial No Deal Portal. It was a rushed working on the other side of the world application.
Monday 1st March - auto no reply e mail from Gueret Prefecture asking for 2 things - proof of current address and proof of arrival in December 2015. Had to re enter the main application portal - names have to be CAPTITALS plus your application number (and they reminded me of my number in the e mail anyway) and upload files to there
Replied - knew December 2015 would be fun (what proof … dodgy gite rental -no bills - just before Xmas arrival…). The one “fault” with the national site is its proof only - no options for covering letters. I sent them proof for 2016 knowing what would follow
Yesterday - e mail I could reply to asking for proof of arrival in December 2015 again - said don’t really have anything for December 2015 - re-attached my tax return for 2016 and a paragraph of sorry no Brexit in December 2015 - end of month arrival - didn’t collect paperwork until early 2016.
Today - all complete - end of the Month slot to pick my card up.
All simple and stress free - and considering my bung anything in the original application just so I have a reference number for passport control (no deal deadlines and all that and I was overseas for 4 months with no access to paper here) - I had thought it would be a lot more “proofs” they’d want. Used a scan of my CV for health cover as an example.
As an immigrant to France from the UK, I have found the French titre de sejour system to be very easy and friendly.
On the other hand, I know EU citizens who are having a very difficult time trying to establish their right of residence in the UK, despite having lived there and paid UK tax, NI etc for more than 30 years…
Hi, quick question - sure the answer is somewhere in the 631…
We’ve just done the Cds applications, when one clicks ‘valider’ it just goes on to the next application - with a new code suivant. No ack, nothing! Presume I’ve done it all right - nothing in the inbox after 20 minutes.
And for the life of me I cant remember what I put down for country of birth!
I applied for my titre de sejour on 19 October 2020.
I had my interview at the Montmorillon sous-prefecture on 20 January.
My 10 year Carte de Sejour arrived today, 18 March 2020.
I’m very pleased that I finally have proof that I can continue to live here!
That’s brilliant, Brian! I’m so pleased for you and can well imagine the relief!
We’re still waiting for my partner’s CdS to arrive and for me to have an appointment but I know there’s only one poor lassie in St Lo dealing with it all…
Excellent news Brian, it’s great to know that Vienne are now processing the applications. Also to know that we will only have to go to Montmorillon. We made our application in December, so still waiting to hear.
They obviously know something about you we don’t 
