My Life in Hell—Another Visit to the Préfecture

I wasn’t going to do this. I was going to write a nice post about the impending vacation season and it’s effect on my neighborhood. But I can’t. I must vent. My frustration level has reached an alarming level and if I don’t do something soon I will simply dissolve into a mushy, pulpy mess, or more likely, explode and spatter all over the walls. As you may have guessed by now, I’ve had another morning at the Préfecture. For those of you who are not aware, the Préfecture is the home of the French Immigration Service. This is where you have to go to deal with your carte de séjour, the French equivalent of a Green Card. I thought I was ready this time. I got all my papers together. I even got new pictures taken, even though I had already done all this back in December, when I was obliged to descend into the depths of bureaucratic hell because I didn’t have my current address on my carte de séjour (see my previous post, My Beautiful Préfecture).

What has happened since then to push me to return to that evil place? Quite simply, nothing. I still haven’t received my new carte de séjour. And I realized that my recipicé, the piece of paper they gave me back in December that authorized my existence until I received my new card, expired in March. Filled with dread, I called the Préfecture. Sure enough, they couldn't tell me anything because the telephone information service had been suspended indefinitely. I was informed that I must come in person, even just to ask a question. Filled with even more dread, I gathered my papers last night and put them in a bag next to the door. After a very bad night’s sleep, I charged out into the morning rush hour feeling relatively hopeful, since I had gotten an early start. I triumphantly arrived at the Préfecture at opening time, only to realize that I had left my bag of papers at home. At 9am, a long line was already winding out the entrance. I decided to dash home and get my papers—after all, sometimes you actually have a shorter wait if you come a little later after the 9 to 5-ers have left. I dashed back to the Préfecture, papers in hand. Usually there is a little machine that doles out numbers so you know where you stand in the line. The machine was not working. Actually it said “service fermé.” Surely, an error, I thought. I know the service is open. The machine must be broken. I then waited in line at the accueil, which actually means “welcome”—a serious misnomer since I can’t imagine anyone less welcoming than the harpy that was behind the window this morning.

Said harpy informed me that the service was indeed closed, that they only dole out 150 tickets each morning because otherwise “we would all be here until midnight,” and when I gasped in horror, snapped out a few more spiteful phrases and told me to get there by 9am next time. O alas, and double alas, if she only knew that I actually was there at 9am this morning! If only I had taken a number before running back to get my papers! But then again, how in the name of God’s Green Earth was I supposed to know that they had suddenly decided only to take 150 tickets?? This certainly was not the case every other time I ventured into the Dark Realm. Mouth still hanging open, I noticed that there was not so much as a sign on the window explaining the new procedure. And of course no one had said anything when I called. And God forbid anyone should think of posting a little notice on their uninformative website.

I know that there have been, in the name of streamlining the system, cuts in personnel and I know that now less people are supposed to do more work at places like the Préfecture. But shouldn’t these kinds of reforms go along with a little reorganization? I’m no genius, but Christ, even a 5-year-old could figure out a more efficient way to get people through this dismal process. I could understand (sort of), if we were in a third-world nation, but this is France, for heaven’s sake. Land of philosophers and scientists. If they can get their brains around Decartes, why oh why can’t they realize that they would save everyone on both sides of the window an enormous amount of time and energy if they would just make appointments over the telephone, or post the lists of necessary papers to bring on their website? Would it be so hard to install one of those voice message systems (“if you still haven’t received your paperwork, and you are ready to commit a violent act, press 2”) telling people of procedural changes? What gives?! Fer cryin’ out loud, what, exactly, gives?!!

My Beautiful Préfecture

I may seem like a law-abiding person, but it’s all a facade. For two years I have been toting around a carte de séjour (the French version of a Green Card) that—gasp—sports an incorrect address. Yes, despite the fact that the small print on the card informs the holder that you have only eight days to report your new address to the Préfecture when you move, I defiantly neglected to do so for two years. I have my reasons, the primary one being, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with the immigration service here can tell you, it is a royal pain in the clavicle to have anything to do with the immigration service. A secondary reason was that it didn’t seem like such a big deal. That was, until I tried to get an international drivers license. A usually simple procedure, my attempt was foiled the moment the kind and caring fonctionnaire (civil servant) at the Préfecture, for whom I had waited for two hours to see, noticed my administrative crime.

It took me a few months to gather the courage to stand in line again, but I finally decided the time had come. After a two hour wait, I was informed that if I wanted to change my address on my card, I needed to make an appointment. I was then handed a sheet with the long list of documents I would need to bring and a rendezvous for a date two months later.

Today was the day. I rustled up all my documents and put them in a folder. Yesterday, I dashed into one of those photo booths at the supermarket and got four identity photos that made me look like an escaped convict. The regulations for identity photos were recently revised and now it is actually forbidden to smile in your photo. Thus, it is next to impossible to look anything other than uncomfortable and unpleasant in your photo, i.e., like a criminal. After my husband attached a sticky to my photos with WANTED $500,000 REWARD on it, I decided to redo them in the booth at the Préfecture before my appointment. I went upstairs, and before too long, I was at the window— always a tense moment. Would I succeed in fulfilling the desires of the angry goddess on the other side of the glass? Had I forgotten some essential element of my dossier, even though I went over the list 900 times? She slowly looked over my paperwork. I failed to please her. I didn’t Xerox the back of my old carte de séjour, just the front. But there was worse to come. She sighed. The photo. You couldn't see my ears in the photo. It seems that ears are essential to one's national identity. I would have to get the photos redone. I stormed downstairs, steam pouring out of the offending orifices. Again, I wrangled with the photo booth. In my furry, I pushed the wrong button and paid four euros for a set of photos that made me look like I was half asleep. Certain she’d never be happy with eyes that weren’t sufficiently open, so I paid four more euros and managed to come up with a photo with fully exposed eyes and ears.

When I ran back upstairs, my kind and caring fonctionnaire was drawing the shades to her window. I tapped hard and she informed me that she was leaving for lunch. I protested that I had just some photos and copies to give her. She gave me a long, all-suffering look. “A person has to have their lunch, after all!” My exposed eyes must have scared her, because she relented and finished up my paperwork. I suppose I should feel triumphant, but all I can think about is that I forgot to give her my self-addressed stamped envelope. What new crime have I just committed?