Hi all! QQ re: needing a copy of my divorce decree.
I got married in 1986, divorced in 1988. I don’t even think I have a copy of it any longer, since 1) it was decades ago, and 2) paperwork from way-back-then was destroyed in a basement flood in a home I sold/left also decades ago.
TIA for any insight. - Sue
I’m not aware that this is ever asked for in terms of visa application. Does it say that on your form?
Often in France you have the option of providing at attestation sur l’honneur for various missing information
I haven’t completed it yet, and I do not THINK this is necessary, but someone in a forum somewhere was dinged for not having it and it got me going nuts in my head. That person had been married for a long time, and only recently got divorced, so the situation is vastly different.
Whilst it might not be necessary for LSV… why not get a copy anyway, then if the need ever does arise (for whatever reason) … whoosh… here it is !!
(a few years ago a Brit needed his Divorce Decree from way back when… panic for a while… but all finally sorted. Phew…
That was for a marriage… so might not be relevant to you… but you never know 
)
Well this is list from France Visa Wizard.
But as Stella says one of the essentials about moving to France is paperwork. Bring everything.
There was a British TV programme maybe 20 years ago that followed a British man setting up a restaurant in the Ardèche. He’d previously been televised acquiring a house in the same area.
The only thing that really sticks on my mind about it was the license application he made for the restaurant. One of the questions was about his marital status. He duly ticked the divorced box. Having done that he was asked for evidence of his marriage & subsequent divorce…
Panic ensued (OK, contrived TV jeopardy) as all the divorce paperwork was locked inside the chap’s flat in London & there was a tight deadline to get the license so the restaurant could have it’s grand opening.
I won’t bore you with the process but after much travelling the guy rushed back to the local Mairie (or Prefecture, can’t remember which) with the divorce papers in hand. He breathlessly explained why he was almost too late only to be told that he could have just ticked the other box saying that he was single as that was as true as him being divorced… 
Not wanting to detract from @DrSukie’s situation, although I was divorced back in the early '80s and no-one has ever asked me for proof of it perhaps because I later got re-married, but I do remember that idiot in the Ardeche but can’t remember his name.
I vaguely remember it, was he doing curries?
Yes. The first series was about Nigel Farrell (the divorced one) & his sub-postmater friend Nippy buying the house. The second series about the restaurant was sans Nippy but with another UK friend, Reza, setting up the curry house.
It was called (with stunning originality) ‘A Place in France’…
@David_Spardo Yes, but most men keep the same surname. Women frequently change theirs and the French admin like you to provide proof of any surname change from the surname at birth, so that the change can be followed. Having been married before, I provided marriage certs and divorce certs so the French Embassy had proof that I was xxx, then yyy and now aaa. It was easier to do this than have any later problems and besides which I was asked at the ‘processing’ centre for visas to supply the documentation
Thank you @flobil , never even occurred to me, but seems pretty obvious now you mention it.
Funnily enough, I have 2 forenames but have only ever been known by the 2nd one. Even, I think, the UK tax people know me as such but various others use my real 1st name. I am surprised that it has never been a problem as evidenced that I couldn’t tell you without looking which organisation uses which name. Just had a look at some, one even reverses them. 
My current surname is the one I was born with - I went back to it immediately after the divorce. So it’s been a blip on my radar (in more ways than this!)
Updated: trying to get THAT info from the great state of NY is a nightmare. It took me multiple phone calls (None answered, with no voice mail) and digging through six different places to find what I MIGHT need to do. But not 100% certain. And not email or other way to contact them.
I’m cooked for now. I’ll take my chances and if they tell me they need it when I show up for my appointment? I’ll deal with it then
wish we’d known that in the first place
On reading the problem my first reaction was the above. Another case of a French solution to a French problem 
Unless the matter in hand had financial or offspring implications I would have ticked the single box.
Ive needed it for all my visits to Préfecture since 2013 including recently for EU long-term résidence card. Divorced in 1988 in USA. And you need official translation. Better to have it for your initial long-stay visa than not. Good luck to you!
Although I agreed with that, it does seem as if the French persistance in forcing females to use their birth names, may be a slight tilt towards equality.
Is it even possible that a way out for @DrSukie and others, is simply to present their birth certificates. As @John_Scully says
I FINALLY found the NYS site to order this. Now I just hope I got the divorce date correct! I THINK it was tax day, 1988. If I recall correctly, it was a definite two-fer day.
