Return to the Prefecture

This past Thursday I paid a visit to my least favorite place in France, the Nanterre prefecture. If you haven't read my previous stories about the prefecture, it is the main administrative building located in each region. Your place of residency determines your prefecture, and ours happens to be in Nanterre.

Incidentally, this was also the day I learned the French word for "worst".

Remembering how long and difficult the process was to get our cartes de sejour (residence permits) last year, I decided to be proactive and contact Crown, the relocation company, a month and a half before they expired. This was in mid December.

"Don't worry," they assured me. "When you get back from Christmas holidays you'll have three weeks before they expire. You can do it then". And by the way, they added, we won't be assisting you this time. Unless you'd like to ask your company to sign another check?
Bah.

Not only was I without the insider assistance (and trusty translation) from Crown, I was alone on my quest for a carte de sejour because-hah hah!-David is an English citizen and thanks to the EU, he can live anywhere on the continent without (much) paperwork. You can imagine his smugness.

But he felt sorry for me, and offered to take me to the prefecture to help. What a sport.

Thanks to the help of the new intern at work, who is Moroccan and has gone through this process a few times himself, I started making phone calls to the prefecture just after the Christmas holidays. After a week of calling, we finally managed to get through to request an appointment. We were curtly informed that the next available appointment was in 2 months (I mentally cursed Crown) and I had better just show up and get in line.

So I picked last Thursday to be the day, blocked 4 hours in my calendar at work, and informed my boss: I'm going to be late, and I'm going to be cranky.

On Thursday morning, on Zak the intern's advice, I decided to get to the prefecture early. David dropped me off in front of the building at 7:40, a whole hour and 20 minutes before they opened, and already there were about 20 people in line ahead of me.

By the time they started letting people in at 8:40, there was a queue of at least 150. We finally passed through security and found our way back to the department of foreigners. Here was another line, as we patiently waited for the guy behind the window to acknowledge our presence at exactly 9:00.

It wasn't too long of a wait, but the guy spoke broken English and we had a terrible time understanding his administrative-speak French. Finally we figured out that the next steps are:

• Take this tiny piece of paper. This proves that you've been here and your carte de sejour is temporarily extended by two months.
• Fill this envelope with various papers: proof of residency, proof of employment, 4 photos, etc.
• Return this envelope to the box here. No, you can't mail it.
• Two months from this date, no sooner, and not too much after, come back here and go to Window D.

We have no idea what happens at window D. Zak believes I'll be given another extension and an appointment date at this time. I certainly hope not. I'm crossing my fingers that window D is where they hand over my new carte de sejour, no questions asked.

All this hassle for a residence permit that no one looks at and will undoubtedly expire 8 months after receipt. Maybe next year I'll skip it and see if I can get away with being an illegal immigrant. Joking, joking....