Let me see, I’ve been in France 26 years, and when I applied last year to renew my EU card, here’s what I had to provide to the Prefecture du Puy de Dome :
my old expired EU card (scanned font/back - 1 page);
scan of passport (1 page);
covering letter indicating my marital and family status, and home address (3 pages);
CERFA application form (2 pages);
10 years worth of French tax returns, each 4 pages long = 40 pages;
EDF invoice, EDF attestation of contract (2 pages);
3 ID/passport photos (1 page);
solemn declaration relating to continuous residence in France (1 page) ;
solemn declaration relating to respect for the principles of the French Republic (1 page);
proof of sufficient knowledge of the French language (explanation in French included in covering letter).
So, a total of 52 pages.
It took them 11 months to process that application.
My wife provided an even greater quantity of documentation for her first EU card application and it has still not been processed - that was 12 months ago now.
We also both applied via the no deal website system - my wife provided 5 documents I think (passport, couple of payslips, French tax return for 2018, and attestation contrat EDF) and for me, only 2 (my passport and just renewed EU card) - none of the declaration stuff, none of the attestations. This is allegedly what will now be processed for the issuance of the new “BritinFranceBeforeBrexit” cards, subject to further documents, that may or may not be requested. This was a simple process in the extreme compared to our applications made in January last year. We shall see what becomes of them.
I do find it amusing that the French government ask for copies of documents that they send you in the first place, it’s almost as if they’re saying - ‘we know we sent you the Avis d’Impots in 2010 but we didn’t keep a copy so would you mind photocopying it and scanning it to us just for our records’.
It does seem odd, doesn’t it - presumably it’s not so much that they have not kept a copy and more that they want to know you are the person to whom they thought that they sent the original.
I think my cds application came to 72 pages - as an AE I needed 5 years of quarterly declaratons, and I put in annual summaries of cotisations paid too, plus copies of membershiip subsciptions so that was 30 pages just to prove professional acivity.
Most of mine were from URSSAF, some from DGFIP, some from EDF and other random sources. Nothing sent by the prefecture itself. Leaving aside privacy issues, II don’t see how the prefecture would have known what to look for.even supposing they can freely access everyone’s personal records with every department of the administration.
I don’t find it odd, the onus is on you the applicant to collate the information and it does prove that you are the person applying and it’s not an identity theft. The tax information is easy to check as it’s available online.
Probably preferable to the UK system where from what I can gather you don’t provide much info, the computer looks for your records and can’t find them and gives you pre-settled status even if you’ve lived there for donkeys. And you have to trust the cmputer to have recorded that even, because no card or paperwork is issued. I wouldn’t be reassured by that system.
Thing is Dan since we’ve been here the various French governments have been sent so many copies of our passports, birth certificates, marriage/divorce certificates, driving licences, Avis’s and utility bills that there can be no doubt who we are so you’d think that in 2020 with mass computerisation there’d be no need to send yet more copies of the same documents.
This sort of situation may be why folk are supposed to keep certain of their documents for at least xxx years. I think it is 10 for most things …but 30 for some others.
He’s been doing what a great many Brits are doing and that working on the black. No doubt he has earned a good living an is able to support himself. But no doubt he has been working the cash in hand which of course avoids paying taxes, but now he needs proof of income and he can’t show it. AS very foolish man, because he no doubt has also reduced his pension entitlements
I’m picturing a solitary fonctionnaire sitting in an office dealing with everything from healthcare to carte de séjours opening an envelope and saying Ah! it’s Tim again! now where did I put his documents, I think they’re under this pile of papers on the chair
Ah but who is “they” exactly? The people in a different government department in a different town from the people who sent it?
Bit baffled by all this. I know how long it took me to get all my paperwork together - best part of a day end to end, possibly more, and I knew exactly what documents I wanted and where to find them (and there was no risk of me getting confused with all the other Watsons because I know who I am) . If it’s going to take a full fonctionnaire/day or more to assemble each application on behalf of each applicant, that seems to me a pretty good reason why they let you put your own application together
No specific “they” as the remark was intended to be satirical based on the “copy of birth certificate less than three months old” requirement for something or other which was discussed a while ago.
Of course UK birth certificates (or copies thereof) do not change so a copy thirty years old is really as good as one three months old. I believe the French ones do get “updated” if your civil status changes.
It is a well-known fact that fonctionnaires (me, for example) are a bunch of lazy lead-swinging shysters only happy when we can make life difficult.
Imagine expecting people to sort themselves out, it is unnatural and cruel.
“We’re joining the match where it’s been Battle Royal on the Centre Court, with the score at 56 games all, the players even at the twenty third set, and @tim17 has just returned @vero’s scorching serve with a deadly deft back-hander just inside the line…making it advantage @vero, now serving for the fifteenth time for the match…the tension is unbearable…”
