France 6 month visa looks near on impossible

[blampied]

We live in Jersey. But we’re live board boating south of france and Spain for several years, a return home to Jersey for family reasons followed by Covid caused us to miss out on getting any sort of Brexit French resident visa.
A few days ago we bought a new boat (second hand but new to us) in Gibraltar.
Was expecting to bring it back through the french inland waterways (getting on in years we take our time) the 90 day Schengen limit is just not long enough to bring the boat back.

So we have been looking into getting a French 6 month visa.
looks good but all but impossible to get.
need an appointment to call at the french visa office in London to pay £80 take paperwork and passport
they keep the passport for up to 20 days
then another appointment is needed to collect the passport and visa 15 to 20 days later.
We’re from Jersey so for me and wife that’s 8 flights Jersey to London, London to Jersey, and again to get the passports visa back
a least a thousand pounds in flights alone or far more if we didn’t fly back home to jersey and stay up to 20 days in a London hotel. Then It’s possible but not ideal trying to fly back and forth to Jersey with photo I’d instead of your passport.

.There was an option to have the paperwork and passports courier back after the 20 days, but they have now stopped that service, but even if there was for us no passports for 20 days is no good, we need our passports to get back to Gib to work on the boat. For us the French visa looks to be stupidly costly and inconvenient.

 

[westernman]

How about getting a second UK passport so that the time you are without your passport is no longer an issue?

Additional passports

 

[Lightwave395]

I guess in reality your problem is not the visa but the additional costs associated with where you live in the CI, getting the visa itself seems to be a fairly straightforward issue as demonstrated on a recent thread:

Visa de Long Sejour - application experience

 

[Seastoke]

What happens to you if you go over the 90 days .

 

[syvictoria]

What happens to you if you go over the 90 days .

You risk being fined and/or deported and/or banned from the entire Schengen area for a period of time.

 

[Grehan]

Commenting on the 90 days premis - and I very much accept the desire to 'go slow' which is the correct way to appreciate the waterway network. However, I would question whether it is indeed feasible. How long Gib to (say) Port St Louis . . . 20 days? Based on our routing page - Canal and River Routes Through France //Options and Timings - - Rhone 10 days (upstream, slowly) + Marne-Paris-Le Havre leg 20 days, slowly = 50 days leaving a near 50% / 40 days slack for the unforeseen, stays, excursions, etc.
??

 

[JerseyDiver]

Easy jet can be done day return to Gatwick for under £50 ? You definitely don’t need a passport to travel Jersey UK. Driving license is sufficient.

Go and speak to the local Portuguese consul about a 12 month temp resident visa.

If you take the coastal route and take your time through Portugal you will then have plenty of your 90 days lefts to get through Biscay when weather suits.

 

[PlanB]

Had you thought about coast hopping via Biscay?
We did it in the opposite direction and, although we took it very slowly (5 months) as it was our retirement trip, it can be done more quickly.
We stopped in 31 ports en route to Gib, generally doing 3-5 hours a day at 10-15 knots.
There were some longer days, especially in Portugal where marinas are less frequent.
Biscay is also a bit of a schlep and insurers may impose conditions.
And, of course, you may have days when the weather is against you.

 

[st599]

Had you thought about coast hopping via Biscay?
We did it in the opposite direction and, although we took it very slowly (5 months) as it was our retirement trip, it can be done more quickly.
We stopped in 31 ports en route to Gib, generally doing 3-5 hours a day at 10-15 knots.
There were some longer days, especially in Portugal where marinas are less frequent.
Biscay is also a bit of a schlep and insurers may impose conditions.
And, of course, you may have days when the weather is against you.

That still has the same issue though, the OP needs an extension visa to stay for more that 90 days in any 180 rolling window.

 

[PlanB]

I must be missing something - 31 legs in 90 days is perfectly feasible.

 

[Pavalijo]

I must be missing something - 31 legs in 90 days is perfectly feasible.

That sounds like hell to me (but then again we took 3 years of 5 month seasons to get from Scotland to Galicia). We do not sail in uncomfortable conditions!

Personally I wouldn’t want to be heading up the Portuguese west coast other than very early season. So maybe the OP could book a berth on the inland waterways half way home and enjoy the trip over two years? Are berths readily available?

He would then have an apartment in central France to use over the available 90 days in the winter months (get a good heater and dehumidifier).

This year we are heading from Galicia to Lisbon in our 90 days, heading home early August to enjoy a summer at home for the first time (Covid lockdown excepted) and then enjoying our Lisbon floating apartment over the winter!

Let‘s hope that in the not too distant future longer stays in some Schengen countries become easier, but unless and until we will be tailoring our schedule accordingly.

 

[flaming]

We live in Jersey. But we’re live board boating south of france and Spain for several years, a return home to Jersey for family reasons followed by Covid caused us to miss out on getting any sort of Brexit French resident visa.
A few days ago we bought a new boat (second hand but new to us) in Gibraltar.
Was expecting to bring it back through the french inland waterways (getting on in years we take our time) the 90 day Schengen limit is just not long enough to bring the boat back.

So we have been looking into getting a French 6 month visa.
looks good but all but impossible to get.
need an appointment to call at the french visa office in London to pay £80 take paperwork and passport
they keep the passport for up to 20 days
then another appointment is needed to collect the passport and visa 15 to 20 days later.
We’re from Jersey so for me and wife that’s 8 flights Jersey to London, London to Jersey, and again to get the passports visa back
a least a thousand pounds in flights alone or far more if we didn’t fly back home to jersey and stay up to 20 days in a London hotel. Then It’s possible but not ideal trying to fly back and forth to Jersey with photo I’d instead of your passport.

.There was an option to have the paperwork and passports courier back after the 20 days, but they have now stopped that service, but even if there was for us no passports for 20 days is no good, we need our passports to get back to Gib to work on the boat. For us the French visa looks to be stupidly costly and inconvenient.

Have you considered a visa agent? Probably cheaper than multiple flights.

 

[st599]

Have you considered a visa agent? Probably cheaper than multiple flights.

Not allowed for France, from the French embassy page:

All visas issued by France are biometric visas.
Any visa applicant aged 12 or older must submit his or her visa application in person. The following biometric data will be required: a photo (scanned or taken during your appointment), and ten individually-taken fingerprints.

 

[syvictoria]

So maybe the OP could book a berth on the inland waterways half way home and enjoy the trip over two years? Are berths readily available?

He would then have an apartment in central France to use over the available 90 days in the winter months (get a good heater and dehumidifier).

Sorry to hijack the OP, but this suggestion is of interest to me at the moment. Is anyone able to make any recommendation of somewhere inland to lay up a yacht (with mast on deck) for the winter? Security would perhaps be an issue from my experience travelling through France by car/tent as many inland moorings seem to be quite low key and easily accessible (compared to the average marine berth).

Economy is a consideration too, and possibly at odds with the above! TIA!

 

[PlanB]

That sounds like hell to me (but then again we took 3 years of 5 month seasons to get from Scotland to Galicia). We do not sail in uncomfortable conditions!

Personally I wouldn’t want to be heading up the Portuguese west coast other than very early season. So maybe the OP could book a berth on the inland waterways half way home and enjoy the trip over two years? Are berths readily available?

He would then have an apartment in central France to use over the available 90 days in the winter months (get a good heater and dehumidifier).

This year we are heading from Galicia to Lisbon in our 90 days, heading home early August to enjoy a summer at home for the first time (Covid lockdown excepted) and then enjoying our Lisbon floating apartment over the winter!

Let‘s hope that in the not too distant future longer stays in some Schengen countries become easier, but unless and until we will be tailoring our schedule accordingly.

Sounds like hell to me too, which is why in my earlier post I said we had taken 5 months.
I was answering the OP who is trying to get a boat back to the UK in under 90 days.

 

[Seven Spades]

Last time I flew to Jersey from Hern Airport, I didn't own a passport and didn't have photo ID. It is classified as an internal flight, won't a credit card do?

 

[penfold]

Not allowed for France, from the French embassy page:

All visas issued by France are biometric visas.
Any visa applicant aged 12 or older must submit his or her visa application in person. The following biometric data will be required: a photo (scanned or taken during your appointment), and ten individually-taken fingerprints.

That doesn't explain why it needs collected in person.

 

[Momac]

..........ten individually-taken fingerprints.

I am lucky enough to have 10 fingers .
Some folks don't.

That doesn't explain why it needs collected in person.

It's a ridiculous requirement. I expect the embassy is not set up to deal with the numbers of applications involved . Perhaps they will find an easier way in due course.
How about we join the EU to solve these issues?

I am certainly considering a change to my retirement ambitions which included a long slow cruise through the French waterways .

 

[dpb]

We have just gong through the french long stay visa process. Yes it is a pain compared to pre brexit freedom but is a means to an end.
The important bit is to make sure you read the instructions carefully.
In a nutshell the application on line and gathering the required documents took a full day to sort out.
It will be quicker in the future as we will know what we are doing.
Our appointment was for a couple of weeks after we applied.
Time at the appointment was from 1:45 to 5pm. (According to staff this as good a time as any).
We attended the appointment on a Tuesday and was able to pick up the passport c/w visa Thursday the following week. Only one person had to attend pick up.

As for being set up for the numbers involved, 95% of the people applying for Visas were foreign students at University in the UK applying to go to France for a week or two. It appeared to us that the extra visas for 2nd home owners, boat owners etc was so small in comparison as to be insignificant.

 

[John_Silver]

Same here. Visa de Long Sejour - application experience.