Administrative 'tracasserie'

Who would think it was that complicated to get an ID card when you are a French citizen? Well, it is.

My younger daughter got mugged on the train last year and one thing leading to another, she never got her ID card re-issued. Now she needed to have it done, because in order to get a French passport, you have to have a valid ID card, and she needs a new passport this Summer.

The way these things are going is simply crazy.

Last time we tried, she had all the necessary documents, but her photos were not correct! They were too small, and ohmygod, she was SMILING! 'No, no,' said the clerk, 'you can't have a smiling picture on your ID card any more.' Now I know why the profile pictures posted by French persons look a little weird sometimes: that's because they used their ID card photo. Everyone looks like a criminal on those pictures.

You can't wear any kind of jewelry either. You have to have ISO-something-compliant passport photographs. I've begun to wonder. Last time I had my ID card renewed, I had much shorter hair. Can I be stopped at the border for not complying with my ID photo?

As if... it stopped criminals from doing their evil business. When my daughter was mugged, the policewoman we saw was adamant. 'Yes we'll catch them!' 'Yes we know them all!' etc. A year later, yes a full year later, we received a letter from the tribunal. They were abandoning the case because 'nothing had been found.' I wonder if anything was in fact DONE to find anything. The only thing that was returned to us was a customer card she had with a jewelry store. For some reason the card had made its way back to the store, and they sent it on to us. But what happened to her cell phone, her digital camera, her money, her ID card and various other things? No-one will ever know, and certainly not the police.

So what's so interesting about the people at the town hall and the police station, where we went on another errand afterwards?

One of the documents that my daughter needed was proof of residency here. Remember that she is French (she was even born in this town), her parents are French and all her grand-parents and great-grand-parents were French. She is living at home and I pay for everything. But she was supposed to have a utility bill??? or a telephone bill??? in her name (and address). Failing that, she could hand over a work contract, a certificate that she is attending college, anything, but not a bank statement, for instance.

So we ended up showing them her certificate from her English university.

What a shock! A paper written in ENGLISH? No, no, better say that you don't have anything at all, it saves the trouble of them trying to understand (they wouldn't) and us having to have it translated officially (as a parent I couldn't, even though I'm a translator).

At the police station, where we had to go for her to give me a proxy to vote on her behalf at the next (local) election, the mood was slightly better. We also had to show the letter, but the policewoman was slightly less awed by the English text. She admitted however that she was probably better placed than her colleagues in the offices upstairs. I suggested that her (basic) knowledge of English should get her a few extra points for her career. 'No, no, she said, I doesn't work like that.' I refrained from asking what would happen if by any chance a British or American tourist (not to mention criminal) happened to cross their paths...

Maybe I should advertize my services with them, who knows?