Working Holiday Visa question

Dont quote me on this BUT...

Im an Australian here on the WHV also, in France. To the best of my knowledge once "you" find work, you take the proposed contract off for authorisation for the work for the duration of said contract, at the department du travail. After this, you work.

As far as getting the WHV "activated" upon arrival, well, thats news to me! :-O

With what I know from my long and painful experience with obtaining work, dealing with the prefecture and various employment agencies and the department du travail, if I was in her situation I wouldn't be worried in the slightest. Continue on, business as usual and pretend as though I simply hadn't found any work yet.

Nothing to see here Mr Official.

I would be checking the directions and instructions posted on the relevant embassy website for your friend. On the Australian one, it says nothing about "activation upon arrival".

Good luck!

Thanks. I'm not exactly sure what she meant by that, as "stamp the visa" and "activate it" were her words, not mine.

As a student, I know we need to go through the OFII office to validate our visa/get the titre de sejour in our passports. Did you need to do that for the WHV? Cause if a student doesn't do that, it's a very bad situation.

But in your experience you just find a job offer (and then go through the paperwork and bureaucratic hassle of getting authorized) and then you're good to go? No need for additional, prior immigration steps?

Edited to add:

From the website of the French Embassy in Canada:

"Pour un séjour supérieur à 6 mois (détenteurs du visa de long séjour portant mention : « carte de séjour à solliciter »), dès votre arrivée en France, vous devrez demander à la Préfecture de votre lieu de résidence, une carte de séjour temporaire dans le mois qui suit votre arrivée. Vous devrez fournir une preuve de domicile, une copie de votre contrat de travail visé par la DDTEFP pour les visas 2A, une inscription dans un établissement universitaire pour les visas 2B, une convention de stage pour les visas 2C. A cette occasion, vous devrez vous soumettre à un examen médical de l’Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration (OFII (ex ANAEM))

- Les titulaires des visas "vacances travail (2E)" doivent se présenter à la Direction départementale du travail, de l’emploi et de la formation professionnelle pour solliciter une autorisation provisoire de travail avant de commencer tout travail."

Do you understand this to mean that 2E visa holders do NOT need to get a titre de sejour at OFII, they simply need to go through the Departement du travail to get une autorisation provisoire de travail (and that was your big hassle)? So I guess if she just said it took her however many months to find a job, then she should be able to go get an APT.

Righto, I'll leave that alt+tabbed game on pause for a sec and grab my passport.

Ben voila!

On the actual WHV visa in my passport which was issued in Sydney, it says "Dispense temporaire de carte de sejour" (exempt from the carte de sejour).

And yep, spot on, your last paragraph is exactly how I have experienced it.

My understanding from various sources including the prefecture, website etc are the following steps in their most basic fashion for simplicities sake;

1. After arriving with apprpriate WHV, find an employer directly (sans "interim", but this is posssibly tricky depending on her location and employers know-how) who will offer a work contract to you. Keep in mind step 2.

2. Take/post said contract off for authorisation at the Department du Travail, which I have been told from an employee can take 1-3 weeks for it to be authorised and returned.

3. Start work.

4. (later) I "think" its the employer who handles the Social Security number application normally, however you "can" do it yourself, and this is after about 3 months of working as their is a minimum of a) time spent working and b) time spent in France, to qualify for the SSN.


But yeah, no-ones the wiser and its TOTALLY believable that it took her this long to find a job! ;-)