France is pretty serious about its immigration laws and paperwork. After my first experience with French bureaucracy at the Consulate in Washington last summer, I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the rest of the process to become a “bonne immigr�e”. 

Luckily IES helped out a lot. I would have had no idea how to get the necessary papers, like the proof of housing (l’attestation domicile), or how to schedule the mandatory medical examination. The government wants to assure that all the people it accepts into France are in passable health, or at least that they don’t have any contagious diseases. But the system is highly inefficient – if I had something to spread to the population, I probably would have already done so in the four months I’ve been here. Welcome to the world of French bureaucracy.

In the end, all I had to do was show up at the Office Fran�aise de l’Immigration et de l’Int�gration, or OFiII for short, with my passport, a photo, a timbre fiscal (that cost 55 euros), and some papers. My appointment took about two hours, shuffling in between various waiting and examining rooms. They take your height, weight, and blood pressure, as well as doing a vision test and asking questions about your general health. The worst part was an x-ray, for which you have to strip from the waist up in a freezing room. But at least you get to keep the x-ray as a souvenir and show everyone what your lungs look like. 

My experience with OFII wasn’t remarkable in any way; like a good little immigrant, I showed up with the necessary documents, behaved, and went home with a shiny new page in my passport next to my visa. It validates my visa de long s�jour and will allow me to enter France in good standing in the future. I don’t feel any closer to being French, but oh well. I’ll be a little more prepared for coming back one day.

Location: 48 rue de la Roquette, Paris, France