[acinoM]

I am an American (and Israeli) currently preparing my student visa file for a semester (or two?) of French (also Israeli) at the CCFS in Paris. My French boyfriend and I would like to get PACSed in Israel at the Consulate of Tel Aviv and move to France in early September. We live together and have a rental contract that we signed 6 months ago with both of our names on it. Also, both of our ID cards have the same address on them. We will be living here for another 5 months or so which just hits the year mark of conjoint living.

My understanding is that it would be very difficult and probably impossible to obtain a Conjoint Francais long-stay visa to enter France as a PACSed foreigner in order to establish a life in France with my boyfriend - I'm not going to awake that famed beast that is French bureaucracy.

So I'll stick with the fairly clean school route because: 1.) I already paid the registration fee, and 2.) I need to improve my French to prepare for a future Masters program in France.

SO - Can a "'temporary' long-stay student visa" for studies of up to 6 months, that is approaching expiration, be changed into a CDS vie privee et familiale if I am already PACSed? Or must I pre-register for 2 consecutive semesters at the CCFS and get a year's long-stay student visa from the Consulate of Tel Aviv that I can later change into a CDS VPEF once that visa approaches expiration?

Thanks and appreciation in advance

 

[Bevdeforges]

It's really going to depend on the prefecture whether or not they'll accept your time as a student living in France. Not sure what else I can tell you. Some prefectures are really good on the issue - others aren't.
Cheers,
Bev

 

[acinoM]

Thanks - Préfecture d l'Essonne à Evry. Perhaps you're familiar with this particular one? Do you know if a temporary long stay student visa is even renewable at all? I've read it's not renewable or changeable, that's why I'm think of pre-registering for two consecutive semesters and getting the year long visa right off the bat. Thoughts?

 

[Bevdeforges]

In my experience, Evry can be a really [email protected] prefecture. Though my direct experience was many years ago.

From what I understand, a six-month visa (student or anything else) isn't supposed to be renewable. If you can, you should try applying for the full 1 year visa. That will at least give you a few more options at renewal time.
Cheers,
Bev