Moving to France / Arriving in France
You want to come and live in France. You can come to France to visit, work or visit relatives. You need information on the various visa options.
The firm can provide you with the advice you need.
You need to recruit an employee from a country outside the European Union. You need to apply for a work permit. Although this is a straightforward administrative process, in practice the procedure can be more complex due to a number of malfunctions on the platform provided by the prefecture. Don’t be discouraged.
There is a solution to every problem.
We can give you advice and assist you throughout the application process to avoid any pitfalls.
You have family in France and it’s possible to come and join them. Family reunification, family reunification, application for a long-stay visa… Depending on your family situation, the applications will not be the same.
The consulate has rejected your visa application (short or long stay). It is possible and strongly recommended to challenge this decision. Many visa refusal decisions are overturned every day by the administrative courts.
The decision must be contested within 30 days of receipt of the letter.
The firm can assist you in this process.
We can give you advice and assist you throughout the application process to avoid any pitfalls.
Your residence rights as a non-European national
You have been in France for several years and would like to apply for your first residence permit. The prefectures are increasingly demanding and restrictive.
There are certain points to be aware of.
Our firm can advise you throughout the application process to avoid any pitfalls.
What’s more, we can put together the file in accordance with the expectations of the various prefectures.
You have come to study in France and would like to have your first work experience in France.
When your residence permit expires, you can apply to change your status.
Depending on your educational background and your residence permit, there are several options open to you.
You can also apply for a residence permit while you find a job that meets your expectations.
We can help you with this..
You are a minor who has just arrived in France. You would like to be taken into care by the ASE, but your minority has not been recognised following your interview.
It is, of course, possible to contest this assessment, in particular by presenting civil status documents or a passport. However, you must be careful to present the right documents to the judge.
The firm can help you with this.
If you have received a decision requiring you to leave the country, you must challenge it immediately. You must do so within 48 hours.
There are no formal requirements. If necessary, you can appeal on your own, indicating on a blank sheet of paper that you are requesting that the OQTF be cancelled. Be sure to enclose the decision with your letter.
The appeal can be lodged on this website: https://citoyens.telerecours.fr/#/authentication.
Throughout the procedure, you will be able to provide evidence and proof of your situation, and it is strongly recommended that you do so.
The firm can assist you with this procedure.
Your application for a residence permit has been refused.
You have 30 days in which to lodge an appeal.
Prefecture decisions are very often ill-founded and lack reasons. It may be appropriate and advisable to apply to the court to have the decision overturned.
Our firm can help you with this procedure.
You have been summoned to appear before the residence permit commission.
It is important to provide as much information as possible about your professional and family situation in France. You can be assisted by a lawyer at this hearing.
The firm can be present with you at the commission.
You have been summoned to appear before the eviction committee. The prefecture has initiated a procedure to evict you.
You can and have the right to defend yourself throughout these proceedings. Going before the eviction committee is a compulsory formality. It is important to be well-prepared before appearing before this committee, which can be intimidating even though it is not a hearing as such. The commission only gives an advisory opinion.
The firm can be present with you at the hearing.
Get the French nationality
You have been living in France for several years and are attached to this country. You want to become a fully-fledged French citizen.
Naturalisation remains one of the last areas in which the State has retained control, exercising strict and highly demanding control. It has complete sovereignty in deciding whether or not to grant nationality.
What are the criteria for naturalisation, and what are they based on? It is important to be well informed before embarking on the naturalisation process, which can be lengthy.
The firm can help you prepare your naturalisation application. The firm can also compile your file.
Your naturalisation application has been rejected or postponed for two years. You can contest this decision.
Depending on the grounds, it may be appropriate to lodge a hierarchical appeal. The Ministry of the Interior often reverses these decisions.
You have two months in which to lodge an appeal.
The firm can help you.
You have descendants with French nationality. In certain cases, it is possible to claim French nationality.
There are many complex rules governing this. If you succeed, you will be recognised as French for the present, the future and also the past. You will be considered to have always been French, and your children will be able to benefit from this.
The firm can help you with this procedure.
You are married to a French national,
You have grown up in France alongside your brothers and sisters,
You have French children or grandchildren, are over 65 and have lived in France for at least 25 years,
You have been considered French for more than 10 years.
You have been taken into care by the ASE for more than 3 years.
If any of these situations apply to you, you can apply for a declaration of nationality, which is a much simpler and quicker procedure than naturalisation.
In addition, the court or the prefecture may refuse to register your declaration. You can appeal against this decision. You have 6 months in which to apply to the court to force the competent authority to register your declaration and declare you French.
The firm can help you.
You have been refused a certificate of French nationality on obscure grounds, such as ‘your birth certificate has no probative value within the meaning of article 47 of the Civil Code’.
You can appeal against this decision within 6 months, but above all, you can go to court to request that you be recognised as French without delay.
However, be careful not to wait too long. If you take this action after your ascendants have spent more than 50 years outside France, you may no longer be able to provide proof of your nationality.
The firm can help you with this procedure.
You have applied for a French identity card and passport for yourself or your child. You are asked to provide additional documents to complete the investigation (certificate of French nationality, proof of support for your child, etc.). You are summoned for a preliminary administrative enquiry.
You can be assisted and it is recommended that you do so. The prefectures do not hesitate to grant themselves rights that they do not have.
The firm can be at your side throughout this procedure.
You have received a summons to contest paternity, either from the child’s mother or from the public prosecutor. If you fail to do so, a decision will be taken without your knowledge and all the consequences of that decision will be imposed on you, even if you were not a party to the proceedings.
To be included in the proceedings, you must have a lawyer.
If you need advice and assistance during the proceedings, the firm can help you.
Paternal filiation in respect of your child has not been established. There are procedures to encourage and, if necessary, force the father to assume his role.
Only a court judge has the power to establish late filiation.
You must be assisted by a lawyer, and our firm can help you with this process.
You would like to change your first or last name, but you don’t know whether this is possible and, if so, how to go about it.
The firm can help you with this procedure.
You are of French nationality and were born abroad or your marriage was celebrated abroad.
You can apply to have your civil status record transcribed into French registers. When this transcription is made, the French State checks these records.
The firm can help you with this procedure.
You are of French nationality and wish to marry a foreign national abroad. You should first apply to the French consulate for a certificate of legal capacity to marry.
Consulates often refuse to issue this certificate. It is often advisable to challenge these decisions, which are taken on unjustified grounds (relating to civil status or the sincerity of the union, for example).
Note that consulates almost always interview both spouses when applying for a certificate of capacity to marry; it is important to be prepared for these interviews, which can be very intrusive. The firm can advise you before you apply for a certificate of legal capacity to marry and on how to challenge a refusal.
You are of French nationality and wish to marry a foreign national in France or abroad. The public prosecutor’s office may oppose the marriage if it considers that you do not meet the conditions (for example, the union is not genuine).
You will receive an opposition to the marriage. Once the public prosecutor has opposed your marriage, you are obliged to apply to the court to have the ban lifted.
However, these decisions to oppose marriage are very often based on incomplete and highly questionable preliminary investigations. It is often appropriate to ask for these oppositions to be lifted.
The firm can assist you in this process, which requires the assistance of a lawyer.
You are incarcerated in undignified and inhumane conditions: overcrowding, unhealthy cells, bedbugs, etc. Prison overcrowding is increasing year on year, resulting in unacceptable conditions of detention.
You can apply to a judge to put a stop to these violations of your right to respect for your dignity and integrity.
You may also seek compensation for the harm you have suffered.
The firm can assist you in this process.
You have been disciplined. The prison administration does not have all the rights and rules of procedure must be respected.
It can take a long time to process these requests, but it is always preferable to keep your prison record intact if you are thinking of amending your sentence. It is also possible to claim compensation for an unjustified disciplinary sanction.
If you wish to challenge this decision, you must act quickly: you have 15 days in which to do so.
The firm can help you do this.
You have been transferred without requesting it, which means you are far from your loved ones and visits are difficult.
Certain transfer decisions taken by the prison authorities that infringe your right to privacy and family life may now be reviewed by a judge, who may decide to overturn them.
It is important to take your case to the administrative court, which is responsible for reviewing the legality of decisions taken by the prison authorities, if you do not agree with the decision taken.
The firm can help you.
You are subject to repeated searches on an individual basis. Searches are systematically ordered in your establishment. You can apply to the courts to check whether these controls are necessary and proportionate.
The imperative of security may lead the prison administration to adopt measures that are sometimes disproportionate and disregard the right to respect for personal dignity. It is important for these measures to be subject to review by an administrative judge.
The firm can assist you in this process.
Your conditions of detention are not similar to the rest of your detention and you feel that this is not justified. It is possible to challenge these decisions.
The authorities are constantly creating new, more restrictive exceptions under the guise of maintaining the security of the establishment.
Our firm can help you with this process.
You have been placed in solitary confinement despite your state of health or for unjustified reasons. The imperative of security cannot justify every decision taken by the prison administration, especially when it comes to health issues. It is important that the prison authorities take care not to harm your health.
It is crucial to take your case to court, and to do so as a matter of urgency, if you are seriously affected by a segregation measure.
The firm can help you with this procedure.