Why was I asked for a ‘recent’ birth certificate copy?
Why do officials ask to see a birth certificate less than three months old? R.G.
A french birth certificate – acte de naissance – is valid as long as the information on it has not changed in any way (the same applies to death and marriage certificates). However for many common administrative procedures an ‘extract’ (copy) with an issue date fewer than three months ago is often requested.
This is because French birth certificates may be altered with a mention marginale – a note in the margins – which can include: birth of children, marriage, death, gaining French nationality or a change of first name or surname (automatically added by the état civil service), divorce or separation (added on request from yourself or your lawyer) or creation or ending of a pacs (on request to the tribunal d’instance or a notaire).
Certain legal decisions such as a change of matrimonial regime or a tutelle (being placed under legal guardianship) may also be inscribed with the letters ‘RC’ plus a number – referring to further details stored by the Répertoire civil, accessible on request.
As a result of the same rules being applied to everyone, British people are also often asked to supply a certificate of less than three months old. This is despite it usually being irrelevant as UK ones rarely change, with exceptions like finding out your father is not who you thought he was or in the case of a gender change.
However, a spokesman for the national government’s Direction des Affaires Etrangères said this is not obligatory. He said: “As far as possible and purely so as to reassure our French bureaucrats who can be a bit picky, we recommend clarifying, in a covering letter, the reasons why the certificate does not meet the usual rules of ‘recent issue’. It costs nothing and may gain you time.”
