Driving Mme Valerie in France

I was sixteen when my mother drove me to the Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles to take a driving test that would get me a fully functional driving license.

First, I got a learner’s permit that my parents could use to bribe me by threatening not to take me back to the DMV for conversion to a permanent license if I didn’t (fill in the blank here.)

After a few weeks of modestly decent behavior, I got a permanent license.

Fast forward about 50 years, when my retired, adult self began the monumentally complex task of asking the French government to let me drive in my adopted country. Legally.

The rule here for immigrants (I call myself a refugee, but no matter) is that within one year of having a residence card (CDS, a Carte de Séjour) one must either exchange a license from a jurisdiction with a French license exchange treaty or take more than 1000 Euros worth of lessons from an accredited French driving school that will then make an appointment for the re-educated foreigner to take driving exams, in written French, and a practical test with a stern driving inspector.

The driver will pay for all these tests and can be retaken if/when failed (more than 50% of applicants fail the first time).

Three years ago…

I started applying three years ago for the exchange after I got a VLS-T visa, which I thought was the long-stay visa that entitled me to a residence permit, the CDS. It wasn’t. But no one in the licensing bureau told me that. They let me plow ahead with the process for almost a year.

They didn’t like my name…

First, they didn’t like my name, it was different from the one on my birth certificate. I had to prove I was using my husband’s name, my “nom d’usage.” I sent them my marriage license. They rejected it. It was in English. I got it translated. They didn’t like my translator; I needed one with an official French license who charged twice as much as the first translator.

Then the translator…

I got a gold-digging translator. Then, they wanted my birth certificate again, translated. I shelled out another 50 Euros to get one page translated.

My rejections

My first application was rejected after 10 months of review. I needed to have a VLS-TS visa to exchange my license. I went back to America, the only place an American can apply for and get a VLS-TS. I returned to France, validated my visa, had a government-mandated physical exam (complete with naked chest x-rays (I was naked, the x-ray tech was wearing warm clothes) in a clinic in the south of Paris), and submitted even more documents to the French immigration authorities.

I finally got my CDS… my residence permit, approval.

Not the card.

Printing a plastic card is a skill in France that is the equivalent of neurosurgical training and the god-given ability to not vomit after looking at the photos submitted by machines in the Metro that would make even Kate Middleton look like Harvey Weinstein.

Then, I applied for my license exchange again. Since my American license was from Delaware, one of 18 American states that have an exchange treaty with France, this should have been simple. It wasn’t. The Paris Police Prefecture-DTPP / STRU-Driving Rights Office wanted that hard-won CD that was stuck in the Préfecture de Police three-D printer.

They wrote to tell me application No. 2 was “rejectée.”

Not one to lick my wounds and retire to my corner, I fired back in a perfectly written (in French) letter objecting to the refusal. The card was approved, I’d sent them the letter showing it was approved, but not yet ready for me to make an appointment at the Préfecture to pick it up. Not fair!

They wrote back. They always write back, eventually. This time it took 7 months. Okay, we’ll approve the exchange after you send us your CDS. I sent it. They liked it but wanted a brand new application that was accompanied by the letter they sent telling me to send the CDS. I sent everything they asked for.

Six months later, they sent me a letter asking for a new picture of my American license, the original one I sent was “fuzzy.” I sent them a new photo.

They still weren’t happy.

Five months later, they asked for my driving record from Delaware. I sent it. They wrote back in two months. It needed to be translated by my pricey, certified, and government-blessed translator. I got the record translated and sent. I waited another month.

And then…

Yesterday, at high noon, I got an email with an attachment. It was a request that I mail my shiny plastic Delaware license to the préfecture de police by registered mail with a return receipt. This took half an hour in the post office with a clerk who filled out the paperwork to send a registered letter and request a return receipt and the payment of 8 Euros. The email I got also included a highly prized “recipicée” which is something like a hall pass you get in elementary school letting you have some crazy freedom like going to the toilet.

In this case, the pass lets me drive until they can find somebody in the French government who can print a plastic French driving license with my NOM DE NAISSANCE (birth name, nothing legal here about using any other name). I’m not holding my breath.

The license will let me drive in France, and rent a car, and comes with 12 points that I can lose one by one every time I break a French driving rule. It won’t be used for identification here; when expats are asked for ID, they know to present a passport or a CDS. Showing anyone here but the police your license during a traffic stop will get you an odd look.

And traffic stops are rare these days; most infractions are logged by cameras on French highways and streets. Challenging a camera report gets you nowhere. No matter who is driving, the license of the person to whom the car is registered gets nailed for the fine and point loss.

The driver’s license process is just one task many an expat has to navigate in order not to be tossed out of France by the flics or the gensdarmes who carry machine guns and smoke cigarettes on and off duty.

The worst part of this whole driving license process is that I live in a city with excellent transportation that’s cheap, clean, efficient, and faster than driving a car. I never drive in Paris. In the summer, when I stay in Brittany to escape Parisian heat and tourist crowds, I rent a car because the rural village where I stay has little transport other than your feet or a bicycle unless you rent a car. I do.

It’s said that in the first year of an expat’s life here the “paperasse” (red tape) is a part-time job. Yes, it’s a part-time job … only you have to pay to do it. The French are smart that way….

Next up: Filing my French taxes. I think I’d rather have dental surgery.