WOW... hubby got french citizenship in Chicago but still waiting for paperwork, we had to ask for a long stay visa and have to do the whole OFII thing i guess.
Getting really nervous about what we will have to do once in France. We will probably belong to the marseille prefecture?

Etrangers: pourquoi les files d'attente s'allongent devant les préfectures - Libération

(Sorry it is in french)

Ooh, thanks for sharing that article. I'd heard a few horror stories, but hadn't realized the situation had become quite that uniformly grim.

If hubby got his French citizenship, you may just want to wait out the paperwork, get him his French passport and go from there.

But for the time being he'll have to deal with the OFII - except for the wait for his medical and contrat d'accueil, it's pretty straightforward and he shouldn't have to deal with the prefecture at all. By the time his paperwork comes through, it's just a matter of sending off to Nantes for his "French birth certificate" and once that comes through, go to the mairie to get his carte d'identité and passport.
Cheers,
Bev

ok, thanks Bev.. I am just so nervous about the consulate/administration messing something again,, you made it sound doable.

Thanks for the interesting article

...le ministre de l'Intérieur Claude Guéant trouve qu'il y a «trop» d'étrangers en situation régulière. 200.000 entrent en France chaque année, se désolait-il ce week-end, «l'équivalent de la ville de Rennes». On parle là de ressortissants étrangers qui remplissent les critères de l'immigration légale et ont donc toute légitimité à vivre en France.
- That sounds like a lot, though I have no statistics to compare from other countries to be able to know whether this is normal or not, is it really a lot then?

En cause, entre autres: le manque de formation des agents préfectoraux. La législation étant de plus en plus complexe et sans cesse modifiée, les agents n'arrivent pas à suivre et s'emmêlent les pinceaux malgré «le guide du guichetier», remis par le ministère.
- Isn't is great how they realise where the problem is coming from so clearly!?! So, who has to read this article for something to actually be done about it?

And Bev, did you notice this interesting part?
Avant les lois Sarkozy, les cartes de résident de dix ans étaient délivrées de plein droit aux parents d'enfants français ou lorsque le conjoint avait la nationalité française. On partait du principe qu'à partir du moment où un étranger se destinait à rester longtemps sur le territoire, lui accorder une carte de résident était le meilleur moyen de l'intégrer, explique Stéphane Maugendre du Gisti. Aujourd'hui, la logique a été totalement inversée: il faut prouver qu'on est intégré pour avoir la carte.

Sarah, you have to remember that we're in the run-up to a big election campaign here. Libé is definitely a "leftish" newspaper (actually, it's the paper I prefer - because somewhere along the line, someone told me that it's "easier" for us foreigners to read), so they're not exactly unbiased.

First of all, Guéant is a dour little man - and apparently pretty loyal to Sarkozy. There may well be 200,000 completely legal entries into France each year, but what portion of them are "temporary" in nature? Students, au pairs, time-limited job transfers, etc. It's the same sort of immigration rhetoric they get back in the US.

No big surprise here. Back when I was struggling with the system, the clerks at the mairie used to have to pull out their files of memos from the prefecture to try to figure out what rules were in effect today. Doesn't help that the rules have been changing every couple of months. And, there is always that tempting level of "discretion" granted to the fonctionnaires - what fun would it be to be a fonctionnaire if you couldn't jerk people around a bit?

I really did find this interesting, given the flak I went through to get myself legal. By the time I got through the bureaucracy, I was entitled to a carte de residente, so I never did have a carte de séjour (nor did I ever have a visa, for that matter). But I had no impression back then that anyone was anxious to give me a carte de residente so that I'd integrate (or assimilate) more quickly. Assimilation (as it was called then) consisted of: speak French, dress like us, act like us and don't do anything to remind us that you're not French.

Though it takes longer now, I find that the rules are somewhat more coherent (certainly more available, thanks to Service-Public) and a bit less subject to the whims of the civil "servants" you happen to run across. The big issue, however, is that the prefectures seem to be doing their best to obfuscate things - by limiting the hours and locations where immigrants can do what they need to. And by changing the rules all the time. Up to a few months back, you could apply for and/or renew your carte de séjour at some local mairies, but now you have to go to the sous-prefecture. Not sure what they gain by doing that.
Cheers,
Bev

Ah thanks Bev, I completely overlooked that aspect of it....seems like a clear abuse of unexplained statistics now. Yet the article was interesting at least...maybe there will be another radical change in the future...