Stuck

We found ourselves in a queue of hopefuls on the pavement of a nondescript quartier of Paris, part of a line snaking untidily around the outside corner of a dilapidated 1980s era building labelled ‘Prefecture of Police: 17th arrondissement.’ Underneath our feet, bits of torn and scrunched up newspaper clung to the dust, yellowing with age. No chic or bobo (bourgeois bohemian) shopping district, the area had nothing to recommend it, just a few small and poky grocery shops and the odd sad-looking and sparsely-populated bistro. The pedestrians were hurrying along on their way to somewhere else.

What were we, two Australians, doing in a queue of French-speaking refugees from its former colonies?

I was seeking a residency permit to enable me to live in France for more than three months. I had run out of time to apply for a visa from Australia two months before our departure (which was the minimum time the application took), and was hoping to apply for a residency permit as the spouse of a UK citizen, the ‘open sesame’ for such an extended stay. My marriage had been recently and hastily arranged: we had lived together for seven years and had been going out for ten, but it was the opportunity for legitimate French residency that got us down the aisle two weeks before we left.

Things had not been too promising so far. We had submitted the application when we had first arrived in France two months before, in the village where we had stayed for a month during the first part of our trip. The application was returned with a request to send evidence of our living in the village. We didn’t have this so had provided instead evidence of our living in Paris, where in two months we would be. The response also requested a list of the contents of the application (wasn’t the completed form itself sufficient?). It had taken two months for the response to reach us, most of the time elapsing from delays in the small village rather than delays in Nîmes, where the application was sent. Having to restart the process in Paris now that we had arrived there, I had queued up alone for forty minutes the previous day with all the necessary documents and letter of explanation, only to be told when I had progressed to second in the queue that the office was now closed and we would all have to return the next day.

After this introduction to French bureaucracy, I had steeled myself to stand in a line for an hour, but after two hours we had only just come within sight of the door. The man in paint-streaked clothes who had been behind me the previous day had gone in. The rest waited, some listening to music, some reading, most just waiting patiently in silence. It must have been the first experience of the process for many: they arrived with one or two children, looked with dismay at the queue, then resigned themselves to the wait. One man ahead of us was there with his daughter, perhaps two years old, who ran around squealing with delight at the ropes that delineated the queue and the people beside them: perhaps some of them would want to play? She kept her father busy for about an hour then fell asleep in her pram. A couple arrived who like many others there, looked to be of African origin, the man smartly dressed in a crisp suit. Others came, looked at the line, made a few enquiries and left. It was past one thirty, and they were not sure of being seen that day even if they did join the queue.

One of the only white people apart from ourselves was a man aged about sixty accompanying a young woman from a country I had never heard of near Senegal. He punctuated the boredom with comments like ‘now the children are having lunch next door’ – referring to the school nearby, where playground cries for morning tea and lunch signalled the passage of time; ‘now we’re moving – it raises the spirits a bit doesn’t it’ – when we took a few steps after about an hour standing stationery (it must have been the lunch break) and ‘well we’ll surely get in today, isn’t that good’ – when we were near the door. I wondered whether the queue had been for something for which white people needed to queue, a more efficient and dignified system would have been put in place.

– ‘Are you here to ask for a residency permit?’ I asked the young woman.

– ‘Yes.’

– ‘Is this your first application?’ She looked uncomfortable, shook her head, then nodded. The optimistic man explained. This was her first application, but she’d been living in France for eight years. I assumed she had been living here all that time without papers. What account would she give to satisfy the authorities? Was there a moratorium on illegal immigrants?

Eventually we were at the door where we hovered before being told that fifteen people could go in, us included. We passed through the security detector, gave our bag as instructed to the security guard, informed her that we had a knife in our bag (for the baguette), left it in her keeping, and went up.

The inner sanctum was a bare room that could have been a waiting room in Russia from the early 1990s. Two or three office cubicles occupied the far ends and a reception area formed a barrier to the cubicles, staffed by a disinterested looking white Frenchwoman. There were about thirty seats taking up the rest of the room, connected in groups of five, like an outdated airport waiting area or neglected metro station. One of the seats was broken. I took a ticket from the ticket machine and we found some empty pews.

The electronic number changed on the LED screen above the receptionist: 88 (we were 108). The man with the two-year old daughter approached.

– ‘What are you applying for?’ There was no privacy, the whole room could hear the exchange if they wanted to. I checked through our documents, slightly nervous, as I heard the receptionist say:

– ‘No, you have to bring your passport as well. I’m sorry.’ She pressed her button to call the next person in the queue.

– ‘But I’ve been waiting since 10am this morning with my little girl – please.’

No. He would have to come back.

I scanned the posters behind the reception desk. They said things like ‘discrimination in any form will not be tolerated’; and ‘protect our children from female genital mutilation’ (with a drawing depicting the outlines of adults and girls, mostly black, one or two white).

Then it was our turn.

I explained my situation, and after a short discussion with someone in an office behind reception, I was given the verdict. I wouldn’t make it to the office cubicles either. What I wanted was an extended holiday visa. I’d have to go to the visa office in a different Police Prefecture for that. The officer explained that residency permits are to live and work, not to stay for a while and return back to your own country.

Should I insist and ask to speak to her supervisor to make sure I was getting the right assessment here, taking into account all of my circumstances? Should I ask what the definition of ‘living’ was? I succumbed to the feeling of powerlessness that the situation seemed to create, and didn’t do either.

She pressed the button for the next in line, and I turned away.

I didn’t go back to the Police Prefecture, or to the visa office of another such government authority. I decided to risk being barred from re-entering France at some time in the future and just overstay my visa.

I think I got away with it. At the airport on departing, the customs officer was distracted momentarily by an angry customer before me and barely glanced at my passport. It was stamped and I departed. But I won’t know whether the French customs’ computer system has a black mark against my name until I try to enter France again.

If I come unstuck then, I’ll let you know.