Cartes de sejour applications: rights must be secured
Dr Michaela Benson looks at cartes de séjour applications issues
Looking at problems people face when applying for cartes de séjour, an expert on expat issues says Britons need “urgent clarity from the Interior Ministry” on how to apply and for it to “empower local officials with knowledge, especially in areas with large British populations”.
Dr Michaela Benson of Goldsmiths, University of London, has researched the expat community for almost two decades and said issues with carte de séjour applications were a blast from the past.
“It’s not surprising because people were having those problems even then… Then I remember when [in 2004] they decided Britons didn’t need cartes any more...”
Applying for a card before Brexit is officially recommended to be ‘in the system’ before the UK leaves the EU and it was agreed in the talks that holding a ‘permanent’ carte will allow for a simple exchange if another form of card becomes necessary as a ‘third-country’ citizen.
Dr Benson suspects in that case it will be one of the various cards already issued to non-EU citizens and that there may be no EU agreement on a harmonised ‘pre-Brexit UK expat’ card.
For now, obtaining a card as an EU citizen remains the best bet.
Dr Benson leads the BrExpats project (not to be confused with the similarly-named campaigners), which is looking at the situation of Britons in the EU. She has been interviewing Britons in the Lot and Toulouse and also recently co-authored a study on issues around implementing the rights deal (for more detail see tinyurl.com/rightsdealreport and brexitbritsabroad.com).
The report was in partnership with the Migration Policy Institute who spoke to officials across Europe about preparations and concerns, including frustrations they have had at not knowing how to reassure Britons. It also looks at practical difficulties for Britons securing rights, advising countries that they should ‘set barriers low’ for proof of legal residence.
Those likely to struggle with formalities, it says, may include young people who have moved around doing seasonal work or have worked ‘informally’.
Income requirements might also pose problems not only to older people on small pensions but also to young people who have been out of work, Dr Benson said. “There are people in some areas who are largely self-sufficient and where average incomes in the area are low and who have concerns as to whether they are even eligible.”
There may also be future problems for those brought up here who never took French nationality and who may not realise the need for formalities.
“We know that on the ground legal reassurances so far are not sufficient because people’s experiences often run counter to them. There is also a tendency for some people to say ‘British people have always moved and everything will be OK’, but it’s a broad-brush view based on stereotypical images, and naivety, assuming Europe is homogeneous with all the same migration rules and procedures.”
She said the deal so far had given some reassurance to those with chronic health conditions who had faced ‘life or death’ fears. “A lot of Britons however have not had faith in the negotiations which explains the huge rise in nationality applications – also sometimes because they didn’t know about the carte de séjour option.”
However, she said she had heard from people in “cross-border service industries” for whom the lack of onward movement rights in the deal for Britons is a “massive concern”.
