Bureaucracy and red tape… bring it on !!

So we now have our cartes d’identité. The final step…. to register our cartes d’identité with the Marie so that we have the right to vote.

The process so far…
1. After 18 months of collating pieces of paper ranging from our parents birth and marriage certificates to gerndarmerie reports, and passing an oral french exam where we were quizzed on our integration into French life we are given French nationality. All the paperwork and interviews were handled by the local prefecture office in Vannes.

2. Now we have French nationality we are required to carry cartes d’identité. To apply for a carte d’identité we must go to the Mairie in our commune, Reminiac. I trot along with the piece of paper from Vannes prefecture confirming our French nationality and ask for our cartes d’identité. Not that simple!… Again loads of paper required, birth certificates, marriage certificates, copies of passports, proof of address etc etc.. And photos are required… the photo booth sort are not acceptable… they MUST be exactly xmm * ymm. EVENTUALLY we collate all of the required paperwork and fill in a four page application form for our cartes d’identité. These dossiers are then sent to the prefecture in Vannes, as they  issue the cartes d’identité. Needless to say the prefecture in Vannes already holds all of the documents in our cartes d’identité dosier.

3. After three months we receive our cartes d’identité. When I collect our cartes d’identité from the Mairie, the secretary advises that we can now apply to vote. Excellent, how do we do this? By going to the Mairie with the cartes d’identité and filling in another form. This form and copies of our cartes d’identité will then be sent to Vannes and we will be placed on the voting register.  Phew….

Now, it occurs to me that this is a small example of the HUGE amount of paper that is circling around France. Wouldn’t it be simpler for Vannes prefecture to issue the cartes d’identité and add our names to the voting register at the same time as they granted us French nationality?….

But then, France wouldn’t be France as we know it… no, on balance I am kinda getting used to the enormous amounts of  bureaucracy and red tape and dare I say it, I am becoming to find it quite reassuring. Proof that I am becoming integrating into the French way of life !!