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Hollande: Brexit vote ‘a grave test for Europe’

President Francois Hollande has said that the UK's vote for Brexit will be a grave test for the rest of Europe.

Published: 24 June 2016 12:27 CEST
Hollande: Brexit vote 'a grave test for Europe'
Photo: AFP

French President Francois Hollande held an emergency ministerial meeting on Friday morning to discuss the impact the Brexit vote from the UK on Thursday.

“The British vote poses a grave test for Europe, which must show solidity and strength in its response to the economic and financial risks,” Hollande said.

He added that the vote was “a painful choice that he already regrets”, and that France would continue to work with the UK, which he called a “great ally”, reported the BFM TV channel. 

Expressing his chagrin over the vote, he said: “It always takes less time to undo than to do, to destroy than to build.”
 
But “the choice is theirs, and we must respect it,” the Socialist president said.
 
Echoing Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's tweet earlier Friday that Europe must win back the trust of its people, Hollande said “the decision also requires a lucid awareness of the inadequacies of Europe's functioning and people's loss of trust in the project.”
   
Brexit could also further support for far-right elements in the EU, he warned, saying: “There is a huge danger in the face of extremism and populism.”
   
The French leader had on Wednesday warned that Brexit would have “extremely serious consequences”.
   
“It's more than the future of the United Kingdom that is at stake, it's the future of the European Union,” he said.
   
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the vote revealed “a malaise that has been ignored for too long” within the EU.

Friday's historic vote sent tremors across the English Channel, where the rest of the political class had mixed reactions to the news.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was – as perhaps could have been expected given the result – the quickest off the blocks to react to the referendum result in the UK.

The far-right national front leader hailed Britain's decision to leave the European Union and called for a similar referendum in France.

“Victory for Freedom! As I have been asking for years we must now have the same referendum in France and EU countries,” the National Front (FN) leader tweeted.

Fears are high that a domino effect could see other countries following in Britain's footsteps, threatening the core of the European project.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo described it as a “sad day for Europe”.

The mayor however vowed to continue building links between the UK and France.

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VISAS

‘Be ready to wait’: Your tips for getting a French visa post-Brexit

Now that Britain is out of the EU, just how much harder is the process of moving to France from the UK after Brexit? British readers share their experiences of applying for visas as 'third country nationals’.

Published: 26 January 2023 08:01 CET
'Be ready to wait': Your tips for getting a French visa post-Brexit

Whether you’re moving to France to live, or you’re a second-home owner wanting to spend more than 90 days out of every 180 in France, if you’re British you will now need a visa.

You can find more on how to apply for a visa, and how to understand what type of visa you need, in our visa section HERE.

But how these systems work in practice is not always the same as the theory.

To learn more about the process of getting a visa as a UK national, The Local asked British readers for their experiences of going through the system.

The consensus among respondents was that the whole thing was bureaucratic, though there were notable differences in experiences that ranged from the “easy” to the “complicated” and “time-consuming”, while the advice for future applicants was, routinely, have all your paperwork ready – and be prepared for a lengthy wait at one of the UK’s TLS centres. 

Appointments

Like most visas, French visas for UK nationals must be applied for before you leave home. You can find a full explanation of the process here, but the basic outline is that you apply for the visa online, and then have an in-person appointment in the UK in order to present your paperwork. 

Sue Clarke told us: “As long as you get all your paperwork together correctly and in the right order, the time it takes to receive your passport back with the visa in it once TLS has sent it off is only a few days.

“TLS – the centre which works on behalf of the French Embassy to collate your application – is so very busy,” she added. “That part of the process took hours even when you have an appointment.”

READ ALSO EXPLAINED: What type of French visa do you need?

“The visa process itself was fairly well run, and a decision for the initial visa was quick,” wrote Ian Sheppard, who successfully applied for a visa in July 2022. 

“Although getting the follow up residence permit was a pain, [and] took longer than expected, and there was little to no communication with severely limited ways to get in touch about the application.”

Sheppard thought that, biometrics apart, the process could have taken place online, and wondered whether the follow-up residence permit application could be more closely linked to the initial visa application, “rather than effectively submitting the same application twice”.

Georgina Ann Jolliffe described the process as “stressful”. 

“A lot of the initial stage was unclear and I needed a lot of reassurance about the visa trumping the Schengen 90 days. (The Local helped on that one),” she wrote. 

“[The] lack of ready communication was very stressful. It could be slicker, however staff at Manchester TLS were excellent.”

Jacqueline Maudslay, meanwhile, described the process as “complicated”, saying: “The waiting times for the appointment with the handling agent (TLS in the UK) are long and difficult to book online. We applied for a long-stay visa and were given a short-stay visa, with no reasoning and no option of talking to anyone.  

“We had met every criteria for the long-stay visa. There needs to be a contact link with the French Consular website directly for discussing visa applications.”

Handling agent TLS’s website – the first port of call for applicants from the UK – was a target for criticism.

“The TLS system is probably the most user unfriendly system I have ever used,” wrote Susan Kirby. “It throws up errors for no legitimate reason and even changes data you have keyed in. Dates are in American format so you have to be very careful and it can be very difficult to edit.”

Bea Addison, who applied for a visa in September 2021 with a view to retiring in France, agreed that it was complicated and believes the French system is chaotic and badly organised compared to other countries. “Even staff in the French Embassy in London were not knowledgeable of the process and documentation,” she wrote.

“The renewal in France was applied for in July 2022 … we have received an attestation that we will be granted renewal visas, which expired in October 2022, but we have not yet received a date to attend the préfecture due to a backlog.

Second-home owners

Many of our survey respondents were not moving to France, but were instead second-home owners who did not want to be constrained by the 90-day rule.

They have the option of remaining residents of the UK and applying for a short-stay French visitor visa – which must be renewed every year.

Second-home owner Peter Green told us: “Our appointment with TLS was delayed by two and a half hours and the whole experience was chaotic.

“We now have to go through exactly the same process again to get a visa for 2023. With second-home owners there should be a fast track that just involves proving financial viability, nothing else has changed. The system needs to be fully computerised.”

Second-home owner Alan Cranston told us his application met with no problems, but came with “unwanted cost and effort”. 

“Our six-month visa was for our first stint at our house in France in the spring, and that then overlapped our second visit in the autumn which was under Schengen. How that is handled seems to be a muddle (we did not leave the country for a day at the end of the six months, as some advise),” he said. 

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