Well, what do you want to hear first? I guess I will start with the bad news. After all the work I did to exchange my driving license to a French license my application has been denied!!! Apparently, my temporary carte de séjour (immigration equivalent of the green card) that I received to live in France was considered to be my original carte de séjour. In order to freely exchange a US license with a French license you must apply in time of your first carte de séjour which by the way is valid for one year. Anyway, I only had mine for 6 months because when I found a job in Lyon, we moved from Marseille to Lyon. At that time I had to hand over my original carte de séjour and wait for the new one to be made since I moved to a new region in France. In this waiting period they give you a piece of paper that states you are "waiting". Well, of course you cannot use that to apply for the license. I finally received the new carte de séjour 6 months later after the 1 year period was over. OF COURSE...
So after Valerie wrote a couple of letters complaining about the fact that I didn’t have a fair amount of time to do the exchange since we had moved during the period I got the chance to fight my case in front of the Tribunal d’Administration (similar to the courthouse). I went to the Tribunal and in front of the judge I pleaded my case asking that I could have the final 6 months to apply for the exchange. Well apparently, it didn’t make a different. What a waste of time and a day of vacation but at least I got to experience firsthand how the French judicial system works. It is very similar to the US system actually.
Now, after 20 years of driving, of which 3 of those years have been in France, I have to go take driving school and take the written test which apparently is very difficult and very expensive. I am not looking forward to this. I think I will keep driving with my US license for a little longer.
On the other hand, we did win one of our fights with the French administration in which once again, Valerie had used her superior letter writing skills to help me get my 10 year residency card. As of today, I have it!!
This means, no more taking a half day of vacation to go to the Prefecture (Immigration Building) every 3 months to renew a stupid piece of paper that allows me to stay in the country while you wait for your real card to be prepared. “Inevitably they tell you that they are behind schedule and you must come back again 3 months later”. You typically repeat this process around 3 times.
No more standing in the cattle line an hour before the doors opens with 100s of others in the freezing cold.
No more spending 3 hours pushed up against a wall trying to avoid the incredibly packed little office in hopes your number is called before they close at 3:30pm and no more battling a bitter administration worker who has already been yelled at around 50 times by pissed off people who forgot to copy 1 piece of paper in their application so she tells them to come back when it is complete.
I have been living in France for almost 4 years now. I am married to a French citizen, have a child who was born in France, a job and pay French taxes but it still has taken near 4 years to get this stupid card. Well, the next step is dual-citizenship so I will probably have to go put up with the same hell again next year.
