BBC Correspondent says 'Au revoir' to Paris

After four years on the job, BBC's Caroline Wyatt leaves Paris behind her. On the BBC site, she expresses her feelings, and writes about her experiences with the French public service. A quote:

My first clash with French bureaucracy came in my first week, with the carte de sejour – that precious official document that gave me the right to live and work in France. Except under EU law, that should have been automatic. But not in France in 2003.

Getting it involved an almost daily trip to the local immigration ministry. A gloomy corridor that resembled the seventh circle of hell became my new home, as I took a seat alongside the other supplicants. They looked as though they had spent hopeless months bathed in the yellowing light reflected from the 70s orange plastic seating in the grand but decaying municipal building.

On the first day, I brought every document I needed. Not good enough.

Another day, another hatchet-faced Parisian official in a computer-less office, her face half-obscured by precarious piles of paper. The only smile came as she told me: "Non, madame, you haven't got your original birth certificate. We'll need that too."

On the third day I was rebuffed again: a crucial document was in English – it had to be in French.

On the fourth day, I came well-armed with every official-looking piece of paper I possessed. "Voila!" I crowed. "Every document in triplicate, just in case!"

The official looked up, grunted and finally grudgingly stamped the treasured carte de sejour into my passport. He then allowed himself the smallest of smirks.

"Voila, madame. Your carte de sejour. Although from today, you'll find you no longer need one to work in France. The rules have just changed."

The rules may have changed, but French bureaucracy is here to stay. Whatever you need from a civil servant, you'll always find out that "il manque un papier".

Read full story