Negotiating the Minefield of French Bureacracy
With Ann Diamond
To be fair, dealing with public bodies in France is no worse than in the UK but some make it easier than others.
Five stars for the service to change your driving licence from UK to French. The website gave clear instructions and was easy to negotiate. They gave an estimate of the time it would take and it arrived almost to the day.
More taxing has been getting a replacement for a lost carte de sejour.
My first step was to go onto the site www.service-publique.fr, search for ‘perte de carte de sejour’, ticking the relevant boxes and then ‘Afficher les informations’.
You are then informed that you can get a duplicate online, given a list of papers to send and the cost of 225 Euros.
But there it stops with no link to go on.
I contacted the prefecture in Perpignan by email and was directed to go to invite.contacts-demarches.interieur.gouv.fr/Etrangers
Once there I clicked on ‘demande de dupilcata’ and a number of boxes came up.
You might think you should click on ‘je demande ou renouvelle un titre de séjour’ but following this ended in being told that the service wasn’t operating and to contact the prefecture.
I phoned the prefecture for help. The correct box is ‘je déclare un changement de situation’.
If you haven’t already signed up you will have to follow the link to do that first.
After that it is relatively plain sailing, costs nothing and will be able to be collected from Perpignan within a few weeks.
I had my card stolen and even the free assistance of France Services cannot help me navigate the site. There is nothing to click on for a stolen carte séjour. I have had 3 appointments with this lady and she is still having a problem. They ask for scanned documents OK she sends them. Another person asks for different ones.But she cannot put in a demandé even now for a new card. I need a rdv at Petigueux but not sure if that’s possible. I have a temporary piece of paper for my driving licence. It can’t be sent to me until I scan them my CARTE SEJOUR. Talk about sleepless nights. Help any ideas. anybody? The sous préfecture won’t help me don’t understand they were very good with my carte vital and my driving licence. They obviously new this problem existed!
Ann Walker
I lost my titre de séjour (and permis de conduire) in 2021 and went through a similar procedure as described here. I emailed the service publique as I couldn’t find the right box to tick, they came straight back, explained the error of my ways and after that it was simple. I had an appointment to collect the new Titre within 2 weeks from the Préfecture. In the meantime I had my new permis!
French bureaucracy seems to be getting easier – chapeau!