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The Administration: Overview
by David Applefield
Let´s start off with a positive and friendly word. Everything you´ve heard about French bureaucracy is true. And the French will admit that their administration is lourde (heavy). To make things worse, the laws are changing as public sentiment shifts and the economy worsens. The overall situation is not getting easier for foreigners to live and work in France. Laws concerning the legal status of individuals in mixed (French-non-French) marriages, multi-national kids, political refugees, etc. are in a state of flux. Under normal circumstances seeking legal status in France can already be taxing.
If you are naive and inexperienced and are planning to stay for a while, you´ll be heading for an epiphany. You´ll sense the weight of the State as you get sent around feeling like a complete idiot, tracking down a succession of illogical documents for something called your dossier, a multi-headed animal that you never quite seem to be able to complete.
The French have a love affair with papers, stamps, signatures, and procedures. And procedures are always being changed and modified and modernized, sometimes to your advantage, but often adding only new confusion. The French carry with them at all times their carte d´identité, which is proof of their identity. When one French student learned that Americans didn´t have national identity cards, he gasped, "How does anyone know who you really are?" ?
The French not only have national identity cards, they often require for administrative matters a Fiche d´état civil, which is an official document proving your identity and status, as in affirming your birth, your parents´ names, your marital status, etc. It has a 90 day validity, after which a new one can be created by visiting or writing to the city hall in the town or arrondissement of your birth. In France, your birth certificate remains at the mairie, which issues a temporary extrait de naissance as proof of your birth. Americans do not have the equivalent, but the US consulate will issue a convincing facsimile of the état civil to US citizens.
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