We are looking for a first-person referral to an immigration attorney familiar with our particular situation - which is simply a retired U.S. couple, legally living in Italy with a Permesso di Sorgiorno, who would like to move to France. I would add that we held a Long Term Visa for France prior to Covid for one year and then moved back to the U.S. , before moving to Italy after Covid. We have been in Italy for four years and have decided that our ultimate destination should be France.
Having residence sorted out in Italy I believe makes absolutely no difference. Neither does having held a French visa before.
You have to start again for France. I think you can do this after arrival, but it seems this could take longer and be more complex than just applying for a visa from Italy. You don’t need an immigration attorney, just read up on your eligibility for the different visas in France and apply, not forgetting health insurance.
Thank you for your response. I have been more concerned about our previous residence permits being a negative on our applications. We travel between France and Italy multiple times a year as visitors, from your response I gather the easiest application would be online through a French consulate in Italy. One thought: can a non EU national such as us have both residencies at the same time?
On,y if you, for example, overstayed a visa or where given notice to quit France for any reason, You can have dual residency and there is a tax treaty between France and Italy which you should explore to decide which place should be your primary address and which a second home.
But you can only be in the social security system of one country.
Let me try to be more specific. We don’t fit into the template on the Francevisas.gourv.fr (not correct spelling) web site. So where do we start the application?
Taxes, etc. are not a consideration at this point. Taxes should shake out pretty similar to our current situation.
For now I just want to get the process started. I think we have the tricky, unmentioned part (re automobile) sorted so I don’t believe we need an attorney. We did it ourselves the first time but in those days you had in person visits to the applicable French Consulate. (SF in our case.)