Hi everyone, just an update to let you know that yesterday's visit for the Wife went very well. This is going to be pretty long, so here's the short version:
It went really well, there were some miracle involved, and my wife's not being deported or put into visa prison or anything like that. All is well.
If you're one for details, here's the longer version. :)
It's a little hard to convey how obvious it was that God was at work if you aren't familiar with how unhelpful the French bureaucracy usually is. Usually, any single item out of line with their list (hereafter referred to as "The List") results in an immediate "do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars" with them. Going into the appointment, the problems that I couldn't get around were:
1) The Wife's visa and titre de séjour were expired. Our renewal process was supposed to be started two months before expiration. I had been unable to get an appointment for three months prior to expiration. The website to book always said that no appointments were available for the next three weeks and the phone number that I had been given routed me to voicemail, which was full and routed me to the website. She should be able to get a temporary titre de séjour for 180€ and then the full one for 280€.
2) We didn't have a copy of the French version of our marriage license that had been issued from the state within the past three months (I had requested one, but they still haven't gotten it to us as of this writing). In the past, a copy of our American one or the French copy from a year ago have NOT been accepted as substitutes.
3) We didn't have a copy of the French version of the Wife's birth certificate that had been issued from the state within the past three months. According to their list, we didn't need one for a renewal of the titre de sejour, but since we'd moved, the new prefecture wanted a copy. I found this out too late to even request one.
4) We only had one proof of address instead of two because we've just moved.
5) Normally, the Wife was supposed to get a carte de séjour (a sort of residence card) that would last for one year. I was hoping to make the case for a carte de résident that would be good for ten years. Usually, you have to live in France for at least three years before asking for that, but I thought I might have found an exception. However, my team leader, who has lived here for 21 years, is eligible, and has never been able to get them to do his. A team member from an EU country (and thus immediately supposed to be on the fast track for a ten-year card) has also been unable to get his. So, it's not a given that just because you're eligible, you'll get the card.
I usually don't sleep more than four or five hours before these things. I set three alarms and woke up before all of them and went through everything again. I verified that "visa" is masculine, that "demande" (request) is feminine. I practiced my little speech in both polite and aggressive versions (no really, I've had to use the latter pretty frequently. Remind me to tell you the parking lot story sometime). And then I sat down, crushed, and realized this wasn't going to work. I told God that I had done everything I could, that I wasn't new at this, and I knew impending doom when I saw it. I asked Him to do just please do the impossible. I asked Him for hope and for deliverance from that greatest of woes and opposition: the French government, a nefarious entity bent on my frustration, financial ruin, and general inconvenience. He gave me Psalm 25. Read it and be amazed.
We made the trip to the sous-préfecture in the city of Béziers with a van borrowed from some team members (we don't have a family car yet), which was a godsend. Upon arrival, I handed my confirmation email for our appointment and was informed by the receptionist that she didn't think it was good enough to have our appointment. This is typical of the system here, and if growing up with a French mom has imparted anything to me, it's the ability to point out when bureaucracy is being idiotic. Thankfully, having an American dad has taught me to say it without getting escorted from the premises. I remarked that since it was clearly stated that this email came from the immigration department of her building, I would imagine that it was meant to serve as proof of my appointment. She had to check. Once she confirmed, we were able to enter the waiting area. As we approached I saw a young woman talking to an employee of the immigration department. Practice has taught me to look at these employees and prepare myself for them. It was obvious through eavesdropping that this was not going to be any easy woman to deal with. Her approach with the immigrant who had a minor paperwork issue was pretty much, "Well, guess YOU'RE not getting anything done here today." I saw one of her colleagues approach, start listening, and adopt body language (and eventually language language) that suggested that she didn't agree and was willing to work the situation out then and there. I prayed that we would have her as our contact for the day.
We did.
She initially wanted us to leave our kids in the hallway, which was technically in eyesight, but I wasn't very comfortable with it since #5 is the equivalent of Christopher Nolan's Joker during appointments and #2 and #3 hadn't exactly been operating under ceasefire rules that day. She let us bring them in and park them in a corner. They were amazing for the rest of the appointment. It turned out that the Wife's *visa* expired on August 20th, but that her titre de séjour was current through October 25th. This lady had a stack of renewal folders about eight feet high on her shelves, and she told us that she had never seen that happen before (she had to check with her boss on how to proceed). She then went through our paperwork and let all of the problem items for the titre de séjour slide. I have never had this happen with ANYTHING, and I've had these types of appointments for my carte d'identité, the kids' cartes d'identités, my French passport, our family book (livret de famille), our French healthcare, our French social security (where I once had to turn in the same paperwork at the same office twice in the same day because magical disappearance into thin air is a thing, apparently), car insurance, getting an apartment, getting a bank account, getting the Wife's initial visa, etc.
The French DO NOT compromise on The List, they do not say, "Oh, well since your American marriage license is here and since you have a copy of it in your livret de famille from 2012, we'll let it slide that you don't have ANOTHER copy from less than three months ago, because logic." They just don't. Any time in the past four years of doing paperwork with them, if anything is amiss, it's a no-go. We once travelled from Nebraska to Chicago, with a flight the next day to Sweden for a work/vision trip through Sweden, France, and Spain. I could only make one appointment for that day. I needed to get #5's birth certificate written into our livret de famille. The Wife and I travelled, paid $250 for one night at a hotel across the street from the consulate so that we could be there first thing and make our flight the same day. We got it done, but needed the consul's signature on her birth certificate. He was one desk over and they handed him the book.
He said that signing the book is its own appointment.
I told him that I had flown from Nebraska, had stayed the night at a hotel of great cost, that I could not come back the next day, and that I had tried both calling and emailing to say that I needed it signed, but that, unlike the American consular system, I could only make one appointment per person per day. I stressed that we were flying to Europe the next day, and that Chicago was not exactly down the street from where we lived. I also mentioned, as politely as I could (it was hard to phrase it without sounding snide), that it had taken more time for us to have this little conversation than to sign.
He then spent TEN MINUTES explaining why he wouldn't sign the book. And that was that; I lost. This has been the sort of experience we have if things aren't perfectly in line with The List. This is the reason that I have made so many individual trips to Chicago when we were preparing to move. I can't tell you the amount of Americans that I have seen there and and at the consulates here who have spent huge sums of money to get their visa or visa renewal done and are turned down on small technicalities ("Oh, you brought one copy of your passport and we wanted two. We won't make a photocopy for you, and if you leave to make one we'll move onto the next person and count your visit as done. You'll have to make another one for another day. By the way, we're book for two months.")
So imagine our surprise when this woman simply wrote a note down for the problem items and said, "No problem". Imagine my surprise when I didn't even mention our hope for getting the Wife a carte de résident and she said, "Well, your husband is French, your children are French, and you've been married for more than three years, so why don't we forego the carte de séjour for one year in favor of a ten-year carte de résident?" The Wife then had an impromptu interview to do in French (she did very well) and was approved for the card. She'll have a follow-up interview at our mairie (city courthouse) but the lady said that it was just a formality.
She then gave us a temporary card for the interim, didn't have us purchase the 180€ temporary stamp or the 280€ full one, told us that our children were wonderful, and bade us have a good day.
Wow.
It still hasn't sunk in that we're okay, that we're more than okay. Thank you so much for your prayers for us. This can be exhausting, but it is such an oasis when you find a friend where you expected opposition.
