Hello. We have just had a message from Etrangers en France to whom we applied for our Titre de Sejour for the first time. The message says that the S1 which I have and under which my OH is covered is invalid and asking for confirmation of health insurance. I don’t know what to do and why they would consider the S1 as not valid. Any thoughts please?
What kind on S1 do you have? Is it a worker’s S1, which often have an expiry date? And have you applied for and got the dependent’s S1? And registered it?
Presumably, you have already registered with the local Caisse Primaire d’Assurances Maladie (CPAM) office to activate your S1 rights and are a holder of the France carte vitale?
If not, this may help
“Once registered, you’ll get a temporary social security number by post after 1 to 3 months.
You’ll then receive a document called an ‘attestation de droits à l’assurance maladie’. This confirms your right to French state healthcare and your French social security number.
Once you’ve got that document, you can apply for your French state healthcare card, the ‘carte vitale’. Take it with you whenever you visit a doctor, pharmacy or specialist provider.
It can take 6 months or longer to get a carte vitale. If you have questions about your application, contact your local CPAM office.“
The S1 alone does not cover the entire cost of healthcare in France as in UK, so it is recommended for residents of France to also take out ‘top up’ mutuelle insurance cover.
Some good guidance
https://www.blevinsfranks.com/the-s1-form/
Another possibility…
“If you’re entitled to an S1 form as a dependant of a State Pensioner, your health cover would be cancelled once you begin claiming your UK State Pension.”
Can this be what has happened to you?
You will be sent a new S1 form to your registered address from NHS Overseas Healthcare Services. You must register this form to ensure continuation of healthcare cover. That may take several weeks.
@JaneJones is a SF expert and can surely better advise!
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@Susannah and @JaneJones
Thank you both for your replies. Hope this might explain what has happened.
I am the retired person on the S1 so OH is piggy backing on mine. We have applied to CPAM. I have now received my attestation de droits but my OH has not. CPAM tell me OH will come under my dossier with them. We are still awaiting confirmation from them to show that OH is under my S1 cover with them. This has taken more than 6 months even though we have done everything face to face over 3 appointments so far. The last time we went two weeks ago they wanted OH birth certificate again as they had lost it. 
However, I was amazed to get the message from the Direction Generale des Etrangers en France that they would not accept the S1 as supplied.
I am wondering if they expect the copy of the attestation de droits from CPAM for us both? I think maybe a call to CPAM would be wise on my part to see how far along OH dossier is with them? What do you think? I am a bit worried as we have to respond to the Etrangers en France within 30 days and as many have experienced CPAM is not speedy! Although I always cross my fingers with l’administration francaise 
That, or a visit if possible?
Just to check, this from Amelie website:
Your principal residence is in France, and you receive an invalidity pension (incapacity benefit) or retirement pension from your country.
Please, provide us with a copy of form E 121 (S1), in duplicate, for you, and for each member of your family.
You must also give us :
- the printed Form application for the right to health insurance (S1106) (PDF) ;
- birth certificates for yourself and all members of your family ;
- marriage certificate ;
- passport or ID copies ;
- proof of residency (Utility Bills, rental contract,etc.) ;
- particulars of your bank account (RIB - relevé d’identité bancaire). These can be found readily available in your French cheque book.
These documents permit us to affiliate you to our system and to take charge of your medical expenses according to French legislation.
Following your affiliation, you will be issued a carte Vitale for you and each member of your family above the age of 16.
Yes, it sounds as if the S1 form on itself is not enough for them and they need the attestation des droits. That is what confirms your health cover after all, not the S1.
Did you leave it to CPAM to get the dependent’s S1? Or did you phone DWP in the UK and ask for them to send it? It might still be worth phoning DWP as they will be able to tell you if they have had the request from France.
In my experience CPAM off load this to their international division which works at the speed of a glacier.
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Thanks both. They have all the required forms and have had them for six months (apart from asking for another copy of OH birth certificate). We did get my S1 and the dependent S1 from DWP in UK before we left.
I will start with a phone call and if I don’t get anywhere then will have to book a visit with them but not relishing how long that will take to get and the long round trip to do so. Even then I agree with @JaneJones that CPAM do offload this to their international division. The lady (same one we have seen 3 times now) told us so and just shrugged her shoulders saying that CPAM locally do not make the decisions any more and that is why it all takes so long. Oh well ! My concern is replying to the Etrangers en France request within the 30 days. Thanks for your help.
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It is not easy to find the page, but there is a way to contact them via your Ameli.fr account. You don’t use the stupid bot, but the drop down menus and many clicks! If you can’t find it I’ll see if I can find the time to set out the steps.
@JaneJones Thank you but I do not want to put you to any trouble. I have managed to set up my Ameli account after phoning CPAM; otherwise it was a visit to France Services to get a code to establish an account. So the phone call was easier. I also talked to them about my OH attestion de droits. They have sent of another urgent message to their central point to get this. I will now send my attestion de droits to the Etrangers en France and see if they accept that. Also now have Ameli account will do my Carte Vitale. Progress???
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Yes progress! When you send your attestation in to étrangers add an attestation sur l’honneur that your spouse is entitled as a beneficiary and this has been agreed by UK, just not got form. And will send as soon as avaiable. Attestations can work well, as person doing the processing needs to tick a box anout it to move on.
(Alao play around on Ameli to see if by any miracle the other attestaion is also there. Will need to see if can add neneficiary. )
I was asked for a copy of my birth certificate 5 times. On the 5th request I ask for a RDV to discuss the problem.
It turns out they were unable to read the writing on my handwritten birth certificate. I went into full Uriah Heep mode and asked how we (me and the CPAM lady) could solve our problem.
The solution she came up with was to ask me what the handwriting said then she would provide an official French translation.
I am sorry this is not helpful in your current situation but be polite and be persistent and I am sure you will get there
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Just an update on this. It was right that the Attestation de Droits de CPAM was required. I sent mine off and got my T de S approved straight away. I have sent OH birth certificate again and will call CPAM tomorrow to see if they have progressed his dossier.
It has been interesting that France Services gave us wrong information and told us twice that we did not need to be affiliated with CPAM in order to get a T de S??
Thanks everyone for your help, especially @JaneJones
Well it is right and wrong…. You have to have health cover to get your TdS but there are several ways to achieve this. So a S1 by itself proves nothing, but once registered so you have an attestation des droits that’s fine. Perhaps your France Services is more used to people who sign up directly with CPAM?
Agree right yet wrong. in order to get affiliated to CPAM the S1 will do but an S1 will not do for TdeS. I still didn’t appreciate being told by France Services that to get a TdeS we were not required to have an Attestation de Droits. That is an interesting point about people who sign up directly as two different France Services which we went to quoted other foreigners (not British) who had applied for a TdeS without any proof of being affiliated to CPAM. Mind you they did not tell us what the outcome was !? Well, never mind, but am glad we checked and persisted (politely, indeed very grovelling) to make sure what we were doing and what would be accepted. Just keeping fingers crossed for OH to be accepted by CPAM. Fifth try at sending the birth certificate which they say is the problem. Did it this time by Depot Docs which they asked us to do.
Ah, the good old days, when we just uploaded the S1 for CDS a la Brexit…
Remember it has to be full birth certificate? Not abbreviated. Hopefully not the problem.
There is no need to be affiliated to CPAM as long as you have private healh insurance. I guess most newcomers on visas arrive with private healthcare and keep it in force until they have been accepted by CPAM So if there are delays with CPAM it is not an issue for their cds, they have healthcare either way
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And legible. People have reported problems with copies of handwritten birth certificates.
@Sandcastle You are right, I’d forgotten about private health insurance as we have S1.
@JaneJones I wondered if it were legibility but given it is typed then I don’t think it is that. CPAM say they have lost the copies of the others I sent 
Goodness knows what they have done with them, especially as the last four were delivered directly into the hand of the lady from CPAM. Maybe lost in transfer to the central decision making body, I do not know.
It often happens. A lot of the time it is because our documents look different so they don’t automatically recognise what they are when flipping through a file.
I tried to plead with them via a message (not the bot!) on my Ameli account but they refused to deal with me as I was not the person concerned and just said OH had to call on 3646. Whilst waiting for that rather unhelpful reply I tried every morning and afternoon to get through on that number but nobody ever picked up (I held on for one hour on Thursday). I am starting to worry now as this has been going on for so long and the attestation de droits is needed in order to get TdeS unless OH takes out private medical health cover but we cannot afford that. Where to turn?