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Cartes de séjour for non-EU nationals students : Required Documents
by David Applefield
To apply for a carte de séjour, the following basic documents must be submitted (others may be required in individual cases). Remember that laws, rules, regulations, and worse of all, interpretations of all of these are subject to change and modification at any time. Roll with the punches.
Valid passport with the long-stay visa (with photocopy of passport title page and French visa page); for students, the carte de séjour will be a label stuck into the passport.
Three recent and identical black and white or color passport-type photographs (3.5 cm x 4.5 cm);
Proof of financial resources (applicable in all cases); the most acceptable proof of financial resources is a statement from the applicant´s French bank showing account number and amount, or a letter from the French bank certifying that the applicant´s account is regularly credited with a specified amount from an external source. In subsequent years, you should keep receipts of bank transactions or bank statements from your French bank to prove that you have been receiving funds regularly from abroad to support yourself.
Medical Insurance/Medical Certificate issued by a doctor approved by the French consulate; full translation of a foreign medical insurance; or results of medical visit from the OMI (Office des Migrations Internationales).
Proof of adequate health insurance coverage in France with specific mention of medical repatriation. This should be in French, and clearly state the exact coverage for which the student is insured.
Pre-registration form (certificat de scolarité) or letter of admission to a school; the Préfecture de Police will require evidence that the student is a full-time student.
Before issuing a student´s carte de séjour temporaire, for example, the péfecture expects to see a pre-registration form that clearly indicates the schedule of classes and the number of hours of study. The préfecture reports that 20 hours is the minimum weekly requirement for French-language studies; prefectoral authorities are, therefore, not likely to automatically waive the 20-hour requirement, especially if the student has already been in France for some time. Students who attend only evening classes or who are enrolled as auditors only ("auditeurs libres") do not qualify for student status.
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