This article is about the Regroupement familial and dependent visa application experience shared by Rahul Sharma from Toulouse. He invited his wife to France by following the process explained in this article. The article has been published with his permission, along with a few important additional information.
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Who can apply for Regroupement familial?
There are 2 important criteria to satisfy, before you can qualify to invite your dependents to France.
- You must be residing in France regularly for at least 18 months. For Algerian nationals, this period is reduced to a minimum of 12 months (Franco-Algerian agreement).
- A valid resident permit,
- Temporary residence permit for at least 1 year (salarié, vie privée et familiale, student, visitor, etc). or a multi-year residence permit
- Resident card or long-term EU resident card (issued by France) of 10 years
- or Récépissé for the renewal of one of the above resident permits.
Here is a complete guide about regroupement familial, Family Reunification: How to bring your family to France?
Application Summary
- Prefecture: Toulouse
- OFII: Toulouse
- Oct 2020: Sent all the documents to OFII Toulouse by la poste.
- Jan 2022: Received the attestation de depot from OFII. Almost 15 months, probably due to Covid.
- Mar 2022: House Inspection
- Sep 2022: Prefecture decision
- Oct 2022: VFS appointment in India
- Nov 2022: French consulate interview (does not happen for everyone) and visa stamping.
- Reached France: VLS-TS visa immediately after arrival. Then, medical visit, CIR, and French language assessment.
My wife was issued a F1 VLS-TS visa with the comments “Vie Privee/Fam”, “Regr. Familial” and “a valider en ligne”. If you have any questions, you can contact the French Embassy and consulates in India in the following article Contact Details Of French Embassy And Consulates In India
Documents submitted to OFII
Here are the various documents submitted by him for the Regroupement familial application.
- Please refer to the detailed checklist OFII Checklist: Complete list of documents for Regroupement familial application
Additional Information for context
Background:
- I have been living in Toulouse since 2012.
- When I came to Toulouse, I had a Salarie en Mission visa from an Indian Company. In 2018, I decided to move to a French company with CDI.
- Although I had passed the 53k euro mark in 2020, I did not get the right moment to move to Passport Talent EU Blue Card due to the pandemic (March 2020 to October 2020).
- Passeport Talent EU Blue card dependent visa could take 1 month max. Please refer to the following article for more information about it. Dependent visa for spouse and children of Passport Talent visa holders
- Rgegroupement Familial process with my Titre de séjour Salarié took 2 years.
Marriage:
- My wedding was scheduled for the 2nd week of May 2020.
- When the lockdown was announced in March 2020, I rushed on the last Flight to reach Chennai to be available for my Wedding.
- Due to the lockdown, we couldn’t make it on the planned date. After waiting for several months, my now-wife and I decided to undergo civil marriage (Special Marriage Act) at a Registrar’s Office.
- The type of marriage act does not affect the RF procedure much, except that this has to be properly translated and apostilled.
- The type of marriage act will affect your marital status only after your spouse joins you and is domiciled in France.
Process:
- We got our Marriage and Birth Certificates translated by an official translator in France. Here are her contact details elisabeth.clavier474@orange.fr. She charged us €30 per page and she was a real professional.
- From the OFII website and other experiences, I had an understanding that this process can take 6 months (end to end).
- After my wife reached France, we tried to validate her VLS-TS online but the CESEDA code was not printed on the visa by default, we asked the Pondicherry Consulate by emailing visas.pondichery-fslt@diplomatie.gouv.fr.
- The Consulate answered us by email within 24 hours with the right CESEDA to be entered while validating the VLS-TS. So, we used CESEDA R431-16 15*.
- Please refer to the following article for more information Should I validate my long-stay visa or do I have to apply for a residence permit directly?
Sources & References
- Regroupement familial service-public.fr
- Le regroupement familial : faire venir sa famille en France ofii.fr/procedure/regroupement-familial
- Frequently Asked Questions about French Visas france-visas.gouv.fr
- Le contrat d’intégration républicaine (CIR) ofii.fr
- List of OFII offices across France ofii.fr
- Should I Validate My Long-Stay Visa Or Do I Have To Apply For A Residence Permit Directly? prasanthragupathy.com
