Stagiaire étudiant - questions

[gacattack]

Hi everyone,

I've been offered an internship at an office in Paris and am trying to get through all the necessary paperwork, but am not positive if I understand everything.

- I have to complete a "convention de stage" with my employer and vocational training program. This convention must either be stamped by the DDTEFP Paris or be approved by the DDTEFP with an authorization letter. Does anybody know which of these two options is faster or simpler? How does one obtain such a letter or stamp? Is this step carried out by the employer? I will be submitting my papers to the French Consulate here.

- What exactly is the rule about 6 months maximum duration for the a student stage? It says that if the internship is part of a pedagogical course, it may exceed 6 months. Isn't every internship part of a pedagogical course one way or another?

Thank you very much for your help! It sure is hard to find this information.

[Bevdeforges]

Though I am no expert on this sort of thing, I strongly suspect that it's the employer who needs to get approval from the DDTEFP for hiring a stagiaire from the US. (It's the employer who had to get permission to hire an employee from outside the EU. They then send the information either directly to the consulate, or to the new hire to submit to the consulate with their visa application.)

There are stages that people work simply to get experience in the area they are studying. Other courses require a stage as part of the coursework - x months in classes, and then y months doing a stage, then more time in the classroom. That may be the difference between whether a stage is considered "part of" a pedagogical course or not.

One thing to check in your convention - there is a recent change in the law that requires that stages over a certain length (either 3 months or 6 months I think it is) must be paid. It is fairly common here to have unpaid stagiaires doing basically grunt work and I think someone finally figured out that this was a way to avoid hiring someone, so there are now rules about when stages must be paid.
Cheers,
Bev

[SureshJ]

Hey,

I just recently completed a stage, and will be commencing another one in a few months...

Luckily for me (maybe unluckily for you), my employer and school did most of the legwork. Because my school has lots of stagieres, I guess they're used to it, so they have their own convention de stage to sign. It needs to be signed by the student, the employer and a representative of the student's department at school.

I will mention that Legifrance - Le service public de l'accès au droit this site is in the preface of my convention de stage... It doesn't seem to be too useful, but I've only quickly glanced at it.

My next stage will be 6 months, as it is part of the second half of my Master's program. My previous stage was 3 months... I believe the rule is that if the stage is longer than 3 months, it MUST be paid. HOWEVER, there is also the 1/3 SMIC rule, so the company only needs to shell out 400 euros/month for stages of possibly any duration (so keep that in mind, unless you've previously discussed compensation with the employer).

Anywho, if you have any questions (other than stamp-related ones), I'll try to help.

Good luck,
-SJ

[sloanetr]

Hello! I am currently completing an internship in Paris and I remember having to go through all of the exhausting paperwork in order to get my visa. However, I can only help with the convention part, not about the six months part. From what I recall, I gathered all the necessary paperwork and had no idea what a 'convention de stage' was at the time. I was told by the Consulate that I would need to contact my employer in order to get the convention. So I contacted them and told them what I needed and they had to contact the DDTEFP in order to get it. I had to sign it, along with my employer and my university, and then finally have it approved by the DDTEFP. It was awful. Basically, I spent two months stressing out over it (Don't worry, it probably won't take that long for you. My employer completely forgot to send it to the DDTEFP) and finally had it a week before I was supposed to leave for France. So I gave it to the Consulate, and no lie, they gave me my visa on the day I was leaving for France. I have dealt with getting visas twice and both times have been not a whole lot of fun.

So basically, I believe you have to contact your employer and then they need to contact the DDTEFP to get the convention. Then all of the necessary people have to sign it, then you send it back to your employer and they send it to the DDTEFP where it is then approved and sent back to you for you to take to the Consulate. It is a confusing process. I really hope this helps!

[gacattack]

Thank you everyone for your responses!

I was able to discuss the compensation with my employer and we will now do a "jeune professionnel" visa instead, saving me a bit of stress and us a bit of time, because the French-American Chamber of Commerce handles the process.

Take care and best regards.