[dreamoutloud]

Hi everyone,

I'm an American enrolled in a master's program at a French ecole and I wanted to ask a question for a Canadian friend of mine, here on a working holiday visa, who seems to have gotten herself into a bit of a pickle.

She came over with a job set up through her French boyfriend, but it wasn't actually a job that she needed the WHV for because her employer wanted to pay her under the table (small business, didn't want to pay taxes, etc). Because of this, she didn't get her visa stamped (or whatever you need to do to activate a WHV) when she first got to France. Now she has discovered that the employer doesn't have much for her to do over the summer, so her options are find a new job or return home to Canada well before her visa expires in the fall. It seemed to me like she would be able pick up some summer work in a touristy service job, but the question is her work visa, which she never did anything about. Is it too late for her to "activate" it in order to get a legal job, or does she technically have her whole year in France to do so?

As an American, I'm very unfamiliar with the WHV and so I don't know what to advise her!

 

[dreamoutloud]

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.