An American who has lived in France for over 50 years has spoken of her six month fight to renew her residency card after the procedure was put online and she could not obtain a prefecture appointment.
Monique Kaltschmidt-Nadel, 79, from Haute-Savoie, has a French partner and two French daughters, and has had several carte de résident permanent 10-year cards.
However, this time she was unable to renew after the process was placed online-only via the Interior Ministry’s Anef site, leading to difficulties.
She believes confusion over her surname may also have been a factor, as she still uses her first husband’s surname, Nadel, in combination with her birth name. The French government systematically uses women’s birth names.
Rules over residency cards are complicatedfizkes/Shutterstock
She was then unable to obtain a face-to-face appointment.
“It seems they’re not interested in trying to understand – they don’t take into account the fact that at my age, I need to speak to someone in person,” she told local French media at the time.
She went to the prefecture, only to find no one available to speak to her.
We checked on the prefecture’s website, and procedures related to 10-year cartes de résident are among those listed on one page as having to be undertaken online.
However, adding to potential confusion, they are not listed on a page about booking face-to-face appointments among the procedures that are excluded from this.
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The page says if you book in relation to a procedure that should have been done on Anef, it will be cancelled.
Where appointments are permitted, they are also limited in number, and it may be necessary to log on again on another day to look out for new available slots.
Ms Kaltschmidt-Nadel attempted to resolve the issue via eight exchanges of letters, including repeated demands for different supporting documents.
French media coverage resulted in her being offered a prefecture appointment within days, raising hopes that the issue will now be solved.
