Pithy

I am in France. I have eaten 3 croque monsieurs in 2 days. Read more...

Pre-departure recap: Document Checklist

List of documents:

• Birth certificate, the long one*, NOT the card (original + some photocopies).
  
• Passport (original)
• + photocopies of the page with your photo, particulars and expiration date
• +photocopies of the page with your visa

• All the documents that you presented at the consulate
  
• A stack of ID photos (at least 12)

*My mother told me that she never received this long birth certificate (the only information found on it that the French government considers pertinent are the names of your parents). My mom said that after I was born, my dad filled out some information on a form and a few weeks later my little laminated card (I'm old) and a paper copy arrived in the mail.
Last week, my mom ordered this for me online [just google: birth certificate+(your birth province)]. It cost $35 and while she was told that it would arrive in 15 days (or your money-back!), it came in 2. Read more...

A Day at the Consulate

The French Consulate in Vancouver is located at 1100-1130 West Pender St. and is where Vancouver mainland residents must make their visa applications (only those who live far have the option to apply by mail. Residents of other parts of Canada should check with their consulate because the instructions might be different).

Very important...
1) The visa application for Canadian citizens holding a valid Canadian passport is the one under the Canada-France Youth Exchange Agreement. This visa is valid for 90 days only and for only one visit to another Schengen country and includes any stop in transit to France. This also means that you should apply for your Carte de Sejour as soon as possible after you arrive, because it is the Carte de Sejour that actually permits your residency in France.

2) The consulate is open to the public from only 9:30AM to noon (and by appointment afterward). And stops accepting visa applications at 11:45AM, or earlier if it is busy.

3) Go over the checklist of requirements for the visa application very carefully. The tolerance for missing documents and sloppy applications is, understatedly, unwelcome. Make sure the pictures conform to the specifications - a ruler was pulled out.

4) There was no processing fee for this application.

Applying for a visa with a student loan.
One of the requirements of the visa is to be able to demonstrate that the applicant will have the equivalent of 600 euro (or something like that) for each month that they are staying in the country. Normally, only three options are offered by the consulate, a problem for students planning to apply for loans is that choosing any of them may cause eventual headaches if s/he ends up being audited - Linda Hallam at the student loan office pointed this out to me. If you are a seat-edge living type, this may not be a concern but I'm quite a stickler when it comes to banking and following regulations on financial matters like loans and taxes.

While I am not the first, nor will I be the last, student loan jockey applying for a French study visa, George - the representative at the consulate - had apparently never seen a Notice of Assessment before and rejected it right away. Enter my pleading and begging. George softened and consulted with a Madame, made a phone call, called me over and stated plainly that he would accept the document.

Final thoughts
All in all, making photocopies and organising the documents were annoying but the visa application was not that hard. I was glad that I remembered to keep in mind an observation that has been imparted to me on several occasions: the French are well-known for having a developed bureaucratic system of documents that they take very seriously, and since the Consulate is like a little piece of France in your own backyard, it is no different. The advice that I've been given on how to manoeuvre through this system is: be persistent but extremely polite and you can usually expect favourable outcomes. I came to enjoy the thud of George's stamp - which seemed to have been accompanied by some mysterious echo - as he brought it down on each individual sheet on his desk. Read more...

The French Paper Parade and ID Photos

This country is obsessed with papers and documents and ID photos. You will most definitely need to bring a stack of ID photos conforming to the size outlined by the French consulate (see below).
If you don't end up getting enough pictures (just make sure there's enough for your visa and carte de séjour applications, about 6) there're plenty of machines and dodgy multi-service shops where where you can take official ID photos.

There is probably cheaper but approximately $25 CAD will get you twelve ID photos at London Drugs. Have them all stamped and dated and ready to be passed out like club flyers.

The "recommendations" according to the French Consulate in Toronto:

FORMAT:



-Photos must be 3.5cm X 4.5cm in colour (1.4" X 1.9")
-The portrait must show the top of the shoulders (or base of the neck).
-The size of the face must be between 32mm and 36mm or take up 70 to 80% of the frame.
-The face must be correctly centered on the photo.
-The photo must have been taken less than six months and perfectly resemble the applicant at the day of application and the day of pick up of the passport.
-Please do not cut the photos.

(Photo source: www.consulfrance-toronto.org)
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