WARP - Now bringing a family member

Moving to or from France
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Hi All, I posted a similar topic back in 2021 but things have moved on since then and now I’m back again and hoping that I can find somebody who’s been through a similar experience and has any details to share :pray:

In summary, I’m a British citizen and I moved to France during the transition period. I’ve held a WARP for nearly three years now and have always had the intention to bring my partner of whom I have remained in a long-term relationship with for around 6 years now.

The time has now come where she is in a position to join me in France. Since the online process has now long been closed, it seems that the procedure is for her to come to France and within 3 months, submit an application at the predecture (Que doit faire un Britannique ou un membre de sa famille pour vivre en France ? | Service-public.fr).

This is all well and good, but things get a little tricky for a couple of reasons:

  1. She’s not a UK or EU citizen and actually lives in the UK currently on a UK skilled worker visa.
  2. We’re in a long-term durable relationship (and had been living together before I moved in 2020) that we will have no issues proving, but we are not PACSed or married.

She currently has a Type C Schengen Visa as she visits on occasion and I think that she is legally within her rights to use this to travel to France when we proceed to applying for her residency at the prefecture.

But that said, because we’re not PACSed/Married, our main concern is that we might run into difficulties with the residency application and at the point of moving, she’d be giving up her UK residency and the risk of having to return to her home country if things go wrong is far from ideal.

What i’m really hoping for here is to hear stories, or to get into contact with anybody who has gone through a similar process. I’ve considered reaching out to immigration specialists too (and I am happy to do so), but I really want to find somebody who is familiar with the specific provisions within the withdrawal agreement as I know that differs drastically to regular immigration routes.

So yeah, if you have been through something similar yourself, or you know somebody else who has or might have a good suggestion for a specialist that I can reach out to, that would be very much appreciated!

Essentially right now the prefecture process seems like a bit of a black box to me and I’m looking for some stories to give us some more confidence in the process as a lot rides on our decision to pull the trigger with her move to France (her job, supporting family financially etc).

Thanks!

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The person you need is Justine Wallingham from Remain in France

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Thanks @JaneJones, I had been reading their resources and had sent an email a few moments ago.

I wonder if this Justine is the same Justine that I had been talking to via the (now shut down) frenchresidencysupport site. She was very helpful at the time and as the service was closing down, she did give me some hits on how to contact her in the future but I can’t for the life of me find them!

Anyway, lets see how that goes next week. Thanks again!

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Sorry, it’s Justine Wallington. She is on facebook.

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Why wouldn’t you get passed or married? It would simplify things.

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We will eventually, but as I understand it, it makes no difference because we weren’t PACSed/married at the end of the transition period

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Writing in complete ignorance (because I’m French so have 0 knowledge of all this) surely being married or pacsed makes things simpler because that’s concrete evidence of wanting to be here for legitimate purposes, longer-term?

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My learnings from this entire Brexit/Withdrawal Agreement ordeal is that nothing is as straightforward as it should be :laughing:

You’re right though, perhaps it would look more favourable when working with the prefecture.

I think the point that was made to me before, and that I was trying to communicate in my last reply, is that we have to approach this from the “bringing a family member” route where my family member is a “partner from a durable relationship” because this is specifically in the context of the provisions set out via the withdrawal agreement which is based specifically on the situation at the end of 2020.

But yeah, I’ll be sure to confirm this :+1:t3:

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Well married or pacsé is going to look a lot more like a durable relationship than just ‘in a relationship’ where you don’t even live together. That’s how our minds work :slightly_smiling_face:

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