8. How did I get a French visa?

And other bureaucratic misadventures

Jul 28, 2024

Me dealing with bureaucracy. Lévy-Dhurmer, L. (1895). *Le silence* (cropped) [Pastel] Musée d’Orsay.

Bonjour à tous! It’s a been a while. In the weeks since my last publication, I’ve moved to the other side of France and taken on a handful of new writing assignments. (All of which is very exciting… more on that at a later date!) Until then, enjoy reading. If you haven’t yet, consider subscribing or sharing idiomatic with a friend. Merci et bon lecture!

Catch up on previous issues here.

houston, texas
august, 2023

I returned from France in January, deciding to apply for a profession libérale visa. It’s something like a self-employment permit and requires you to possess things like a business plan and French customers. Neither of which I typically have on hand. So, I’ve spent the last eight months conjuring a business—a business I hoped would impress immigration authorities—out of thin air.

At last, it’s August and my application is ready. It resides inside a three-ring binder that is so big, it fails to fit inside my backpack. I’m very proud of it.

My mom and I arrive in Houston well before my visa appointment, an in-person meeting during which I submit my application. There is immediately some confusion about the location. The address listed on my appointment confirmation sends us to a sleek silver skyscraper. We step into a cavernous lobby that looks like the set of some hostage movie. There’s white marble everywhere and a woman seated at a solitary desk guarding the elevators.

As we approach, she looks up from her phone and notes my binder.

“You here for a visa appointment?”

“Yes, we’re a bit early.”

“Good, ‘cause it’s not here. They moved downtown.” She points to a small map taped to the desk. It’s torn in half and splattered with red paint. Something about it doesn’t feel official.

“They didn’t say the address had changed.”

She shrugs and resumes her game of Candy Crush.

As we leave, my mom asks, “Now, aren’t you glad we came early?”

I look at my watch. We have four hours to spare, so we head back to the hotel to wait.

When it’s finally time for the appointment, my mom and I are somehow running late. How does having more time always make me late? We find a carpark in Downtown Houston, where the air smells of roast garbage and my sandals stick to the pavement. We hurry toward the processing center, passing beneath the mural of a woman morphing into a flock of birds. Inside the office building, we’re welcomed by a grey security guard slouched beneath a flickering light.

He examines my appointment confirmation, then points to the elevator. There’s a woman anxiously jabbing the button.

“Can you believe they changed the address?” She demands.

I notice her binder is much smaller than mine.

The waiting area is occupied by nervous, fidgety people. When it’s my turn, I’m ushered through a glass barrier and seated in front of the processing agent.

His eyes fall upon my binder.

“Don’t tell me that’s your paperwork!” He all but cries. “What visa are you applying for?”

“Profession libérale.”

He rubs his eyes. "Something about that binder told me you were applying for the profession libérale.” He sighs. “Ok, let’s get started.”

I begin to push my binder across the desk.

“No, no, take everything out.”

“You don’t want my binder?”

“We have our own.” He reveals a slim, hot pink folder.

Disappointed, I begin emptying my paperwork onto his desk. Twenty minutes later, I’ve been processed: fingers printed, photo taken, and passport confiscated. He says my application will be overnighted to the French Embassy in Washington D.C.

I ask when I should expect a response.

“Maybe a few weeks? A few months? You don’t really know.”

I fly back to Colorado later that day, trying not to think about all the things I don’t know.

Is it the first day of school or a visa appointment?

I live in a state of anxiety. The days tick slowly by, fading into a blur. My existence becomes that of someone who waits. I try to go about my day-to-day. Returning to work. Exercising. Grabbing drinks with friends. All the while, my future hangs in uncertainty.

Then, one day—a entire week later—my passport is returned. Inside is a one-year, profession libérale visa.

lyon, france
juin, 2024

I was checking in for some appointment and the woman at the front desk was troubled by my passport. She asked her co-worker to come take a look. They conferred amongst themselves, wondering if they should get a third opinion. I asked if there was a problem, concerned that something was wrong with my documentation. Since arriving in France, I’ve had this low-level anxiety about my paperwork, always afraid someone would send me packing back to America.

She held up my passport. “It’s your deuxième prénom, your middle name. There’s no hyphen.”

“Ok?”

“In France, we put a hyphen between the first and the middle name, but your passport doesn’t have this.”

“Ok?”

The two women discuss the issue further. Finally, she returns my passport and all but whispers, “I will have to add this hyphen on our computer.”

I thank her profusely.

Before arriving in France, I was told that I should learn to practice patience. Meditate a bit more. Focus on my breath. Perhaps convert to Buddhism. I had generously assumed that the French bureaucracy’s reputation as a pedantic headache was a cliché… perhaps based on a measure of truth, but eliciting nothing more than the occasional eye roll.

A few months ago, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. My immigration processing had ground to a halt. Gone were the days of one-week turnarounds. I seemed to be trapped in this invisible no-man’s land between agencies, none of whom could decide what to do with me.

There was some account they wanted me to sign-up for, but I couldn’t without creating an account on a different website… which I couldn’t gain access to without having the first account. When I explained the nature of my Catch-22, the response from various bureaucrats was usually: C’est la France. That’s France.

At last, my first immigration meeting was scheduled for May, then rescheduled for June.

I take an Uber down to the bottom of la presqu'île, a densely populated sliver of land wedged between the Rhône and the Soane rivers. I arrive fifteen minutes early and choose a seat in the empty waiting room. As other participants arrive, it becomes clear that I’m the only American. I see passports from Algeria and Morocco.

One woman leans across to another and asks, “Venez-vous du Pakistan?” Are you from Pakistan?

The other woman shakes her head and replies, “Non, Tunisie.”

Almost everyone is from North Africa, countries targeted by growing anti-immigration rhetoric. I wonder what it feels like, to enter a country where so many loud, angry voices are shouting about you. This immigration process birthes enough anxiety as it is. The officials guide my group through one proceeding after another.

They ask questions intended to assess our needs:

“Do you have work?” Too much, I think wryly.

“Do you have a computer?” Obviously.

“You live in La Croix-Rousse? That’s expensive there isn’t it?” Yeah, kind of…

Someone recently asked me if getting a French visa was hard. I reflect on the months it took to build my application—starting an actual business—and the bureaucratic knots I’ve sought to untangle since my arrival. But, I realize now, it could have been harder. A whole lot harder.

I decide the thing to do—in addition to developing a modicum of patience and breathing a bit more—is to practice a deep sense of gratitude.

8. How did I get a French visa?

And other bureaucratic misadventures

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