Solution to bug hindering online French work permit applications

French officials have passed on a tip for people having problems completing the online process to obtain a work permit for a foreign worker to come to France.

It comes as one British person running a bar in Val d’Isère, Savoie, told us she has been struggling for weeks to complete an application for a permit, having done so successfully earlier in the year for two other workers from the UK.

Alice Milne, who runs Le Petit Danois, said the process had gone quite smoothly in September, but recently she has been blocked each time on reaching the section to enter the details of the person she is applying for.

The website kept saying ‘an error occurred during the approval’.

An interior ministry source said they have not been alerted to “too many problems”, but this issue relates to an anomaly that they had aimed to rectify but which seems to be cropping up again.

She said the solution is to put in the request using a different email address that you have never used to apply for an autorisation de travail.

If necessary, you will have to create a new free email address on one of the popular sites, such as Gmail.

Obtaining an autorisation de travail is one of the first steps if a French firm wants to employ a non-EU worker.

The application involves showing that you have tried to recruit locally – for example by advertising for three weeks with Pôle Emploi – but have not found someone meeting the requirements.

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