I think a lot of UK residents of France didn’ t fully anticipate the consequences of Brexit early on, and then got caught out. However things have moved on, people are trying to remain legit, and certainly I see far fewer UK licence plates these days…
Nevertheless, exchanging the licence wasn’t very onerous compared to obtaining that first all-important carte de sejour or carte vitale
Fortunately, there are other criteria, otherwise most SF posters would be non-human (of course there’s always the possibility that some are - alien conspiracy theories anyone?)
I think licence issue was centralised in Nantes in early 2018, I applied at the end of 2017 and got the licence from Nantes in 2018. In other words, it had stopped being handled by the prefectures several years ago. All this was flagged up well in advance in The Connexion (not plugging it, but a lot of UK immigrants to France do read it).
Not defending the French system because the switch from local to national issuing was badly planned and I think they introduced computerisation of records at the same time, which didn’t help initially. However, this was nothing to do with the prefectures’ attitudes, as the responsibility had been taken out of their hands.
I think you’re right, this is key. None of us thought/expected/ hoped that things would go as they have. Thankfully even with as poor deal as has been done the destruction and devastation has been pretty muted to date but when there were people who at times really thought that article 50 could/may be overturned (however few that may have been) I guess we forget how much many thought’things will turn out alright in the end’ and didn’t bother doing things they could have that with hindsight would have made things today smoother.
I was referring to ‘that first all-important carte de sejour or carte vitale’, not the post-Brexit replacement. Find it difficult to believe that your original pre-Brexit application was so simple.
Maybe for the replacement, but for my wife and self, the original applications for both involved extensive form filling with lots of supporting documentation, the carte de sejour required a F2F interview in Rodez (prefecture) and the carte vitale required interviews in Decazeville and Rodez despite us both having a UK S1. Whereas for the driving licence, I just filled in a simple form and submitted it with the UK licence.
I think there was a great deal of that, but also not everyone takes an active interest in current affairs even though developments might affect them directly.
Our pre-Brexit resident cards were pretty straightforward. A form dropped off at préfecture with the standard ‘dossier’, and cards picked up a few weeks later. The CV’s (without an S1) were something else! Endless paper, delays and repeat requests and they crawled through our finances with magnifying glasses. I think it has actually got easier!
Unfortunately OH procrastinated sending off his driving licence until it was too late.
I like the idea of regional government, but in practice, I’m not too sure, whether it’s French départements dealing with Brexit fall-out, or US states and Canadian or German provinces dealing with Covid, the local variations, which one might expect to be a strength, seem to cause greater chaos,uncertainty and confusion.
It’s so interesting how different departments took different approaches. Like @DrMarkH we finished up with two fat dossiers of paperwork that Lot-et-Garonne demanded of us. Everything including inside leg measurements. We felt like we were heading for an exam aural. In the end the interview itself was great - for every question we had the right paper.
I remember posting on here, asking questions - “what does this mean?” “what does that require?” and people on here not believing any of it was necessary. It was.
When I was asked to send off the UK photocard, I was emailed an attestation authorising me to drive in france while waiting for the licence. Have they done that for you, @Mat_Davies .
By the way, if I remember rightly, the new licence took about 2 weeks from that point.
The UK DVLC is currently advising people of a minimum 3 month delay - but in fact the UK press is full of cases of waits of a year or more.
See the thread…
The lesson to learn is that the moment your UK licence is within 6 months of expiring get your application done.
(I thought I had done this but it would appear I can’t count! I applied with just 4 & half months which I thought was 5 & half - as unable to count perhaps I shouldn’t be allowed to drive!)
I think you were very lucky with your timing tbh Mark, I applied January of 2018. No word for 14 months followed by a rejection letter as I didn’t need to change it. So a very short difference in time leading to a totally different outcome.
I think you were very lucky with your timing tbh Mar
Sorry, if that’s the right word (and it probably is) ? My UK driving licence’s date of expiration(?) was initially unbeknown to me - Did I really use that word just now? Sounds like something from The Lord of the Rings! but my UK licence had already run-out so was very relieved to get a FR licence. But the simplicity of the processs mayhave been because my licence had already expired and it was early in the game. By contrast OH’s change took fifteen months.
We felt like we were heading for an exam aural. In the end the interview itself was great - for every question we had the right paper.