SNL skit or my real life? Sketch 1: The French Embassy

If you read about our experience with the Greek embassy, you may already know that the boys and I were planning to go to France as dependents of a European Union citizen (Nico), but 5 months into the process of gathering all the necessary information and with only 3 months left until we hoped to leave the country, we had to shift gears quickly to apply for a visa at the French embassy to go to France as Americans.

Before we were certain the Greek route wouldn't work, I had done a bit of research on the French embassy's website about acquiring a "long-stay visa".  I read the general information section, the long-stay visa section, and the FAQ section, among a couple other articles on the website.  I accidentally discovered that each French embassy location in the US had it's own webpage of required documents to obtain a long-stay visa.  Each one was slightly different, which helped me because the other websites explained some of the requirements in more depth, but also confused me since other locations asked for more specific items than the office in DC.  I had a couple questions that weren't answered anywhere and I found nothing that mentioned what to prepare for a child visa.  So, naturally, I thought I would just call and ask them.

The glaring results of a
simple Google Search.

With a quick Google search, I easily found the phone number for the embassy office in Washington DC, which I'm sure all of the ambassadors would cringe to hear.  After a couple rings, an automated message greeted me in French and then in English.  I navigated through the labyrinth of options to get to the visa section, where another automated message began, "You have reached the visa section at the French embassy.  Due to high call volume, the staff at the visa section cannot answer your call."

The recording continued on about how to find their website, but I got stuck on those last words.  "What?" I thought, "Well if they don't answer the phone they will surely let me leave a message."  No, the recording ended and so did the phone call.  How is anyone supposed to get questions answered?

I went back to the FAQ section of their website where they had information on how to email them.  The rules for email communication with the visa section are very strict.  I had to include my name, date of birth, passport information, gender, and more at the beginning of the email or they would not answer me.  If any question I asked had anything to do with something already answered on the website, they would not answer the entire email.  I wrote up my questions, proofread the email 100 times, held my breath, and hit the send button.

Immediately an automatic email response appeared in my inbox.  Among various curt suggestions to several possible reasons I may have emailed them, my eyes locked in on one sentence in particular: "Due to a very high number of requests, please note that you may not receive any reply to your query."  These people need to hire more staff!  Couldn't they take it as a compliment that so many people want to visit their wonderful country and help us out?

Within the next week, Nico and I had a turn for a date in our weekly-rotating, childcare-sharing, date night.  I brought a notebook along on the date and after dinner we leaned in to do some serious brainstorming about how to get my questions answered.  We weren't interested in paying the French embassy $113 per person, including children, and risk a visa refusal without all our papers in order.  The FAQ section was very clear on the topic, "No.  There are no refunds for refused visas."  I can't help but imagine most of the answers in the FAQ section said with arms crossed and a scowl on the face.

The best idea from our date night brainstorm was that I would call the embassy and try to talk to a person, any person, about my questions without framing them as visa questions.  Pushing aside the reality that I'd rather bike up Massanutten mountain with square wheels than weasel around people to get answers, or bargain with merchants for cheaper prices or anything, the next day I took a deep breath and dialed the phone number, sitting with better posture than usual to represent how bold I would be.  The automated greeting began in French and I already knew to push "two" for English, which increased my confidence.  I listened carefully to all the options and chose zero for "other departments".

Without any time on hold, a real live woman answered in French right away!  Now was my chance.  "Bonjour, hello," I began, encouraging myself by deciding there was no way she could hear how fast my blood was rushing, "I was just interested in finding out some information on traveling in France..."  I had to stop talking because I was cut off by her curt, unwavering inquiry, "Are you calling about a visa question?"  She must've been the one who wrote the website!  I kicked myself for not getting a better intro sentence from my shrewd Peruvian husband.  My confidence deflated and all I could do was respond with a defeated, "Uh, yes."  She quickly retorted, "We do not answer visa questions over the phone."  Before I could throw any questions at her to see if she would accidentally answer one, she suggested I send them an email and gave me a different email address than I had already sent a message to.  I sheepishly thanked her and hung up the phone.

Back at the computer, I forwarded the message with my questions to the new email address and an automatic response instantly popped into my inbox.  Déjà vu!  The text was shorter for this automatic response than the previous one, but still very clear. "If your request concerns issues for visas for France, no answer will be given by e-mail."  Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, couldn't have guessed.

A week later I had no response from the French embassy in my inbox, and out of sheer desperation I thought I'd call again and attempt to convince them to at least give me two answers.  I pushed "zero" again since "other departments" are staffed with live human people.  A woman answered, perhaps the same one, and I explained that I'd emailed about visas and hadn't gotten a response in a week, how long would it take?  She told me very assuredly, as if it had been the case all along, that I could call the visa section between 2pm and 5pm to talk to someone.  I don't know if it was a trick to stop talking to me, but it worked for that moment.  I was hopeful to hear this news, albeit confused.  Had I never called between those hours?!  The next day I called the visa section within the appropriate time window expecting a new response, but the same old "due to high call volume we do not answer the phone" message was playing.  Wishing I had notarized the French woman's words, I called her extension again.

This is a real ad from the French Embassy website.
Will any of the 42.7 million euros go to hiring
email and phone agents in their US visa department??

"Bonjour, I was told I could call the visa section between 2pm and 5pm and they aren't answering the phone." I spoke into the mouthpiece more confidently this time than ever.  The woman responded, speaking very quickly in her French accent, "Yes, well, they don't do that anymore.  They're very busy right now.  Everyone is working on the election coming up this weekend.  You have to send them an email."  The conversation went nowhere, and I should mention that the French presidential election had completed a few weeks before this phone call.  Emmanuel Macron was already announced as president.  I didn't ever figure out if "the election coming up [that] weekend" was a some kind of post-election election or another ploy to get off the phone with me.

Nico and I decided we would just go ahead and do our best, trusting that if God wanted us to go to France then the French people wouldn't stop us.  The only thing left to do was rent a dolly to roll our entire file cabinet into the embassy office for our appointment, giving us the ability to pull out any extra documents at whim to deflect lurking ambushes to our application.  (Just kidding.)