Are Britons making a lot of demands on French prefectures?

It was stated in debates on the 2024 immigration law that préfectures were having to deal with a lot of applications from British visitors post-Brexit. Is that true?

Some French MPs claimed during debate on France’s 2024 immigration law that a lot of Britons were making residency card applications to prefectures and taking up their time – but why would this be?

The issue was raised in discussions about whether or not France’s immigration bill should have an article in it to help British people who live in the UK and have a second home in France and who are currently subject to the basic EU rule of ‘90 days in the Schengen area in any 180-day period’ (editor’s note: France is able to set its own rules for access specifically to its own national territory).

One MP suggested that the Britons are making many demands on préfectures for residency cards, and so this is a possible argument for doing something to ease the situation.

British people are doubtlessly making significant demands on French officials, but in the case of second-home owners, this especially concerns the French consulate in London and its contractors, TLSContact, which have three UK offices that collect paperwork from visa applicants.

When do préfectures process second-home owner requests?

With regard to prefectures, a rare possibility exists for British second-home owners or other temporary visitors to France to ask their local French prefecture to extend their right to stay beyond three months due to exceptional circumstances. This could be, for example, due to urgent health issues that require treatment in France.

Otherwise, the main reason that we are aware of for a préfecture to have to deal with a UK national who does not intend to settle permanently in France is where the person is the spouse of an EU – but not French – national and wants to stay with them in France for more than three months.

The Interior Ministry previously told us that these Britons are able to come to France with no formal visa application but that they should then apply in France for a residency card if they want to stay for longer, even if not settling down permanently.

Spouses of French people wanting to come to France with them for more than three months are, instead, required to apply for a special free long-stay visa before coming to France.

The other main reason for applications from Britons to be dealt with by French préfectures is when they have moved to France with a normal long-stay visa but then apply for residency cards to stay on longer (typically at the end of their first year).

In particular, British retirees who move to France must now apply for a carte de séjour ‘visiteur’ which must be renewed annually, so their dossiers will have to be processed repeatedly by their préfectures.

The initial application for residency cards is now usually made online, but it is still préfectures that process the dossiers.