mbre

My long sejour temporaire visa expires on October 31st and I need to stay in France for another three weeks. I have been given contradictory advice from different French consulates. One consulate said that I can exit the Schengen zone and spend a day in the UK, then return to France under the plain old under-90 days tourist rule. The other consulate said this is not possible and that my long sejour visa counts as consuming my 90 days as a tourist. According to them, it would only work if I had a student or employment visa.

Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? I'm in a bit of a bind since the consulate says they can't issue a new visa for an extended period, and that the prefecture office will not extend my visa.
Thanks.

janisj

Since the consulates don't agree -- what does it matter what anyone on here thinks? Not being snarky - honest. But my guess is you are at the mercy/whim of which ever immigration officer(s) you encounter.

nytraveler

"since the consulate says they can't issue a new visa for an extended period, and that the prefecture office will not extend my visa"

I think this is your answer. No one wants to give you any paperwork that will allow you to stay longer. So you would do so at your own risk.

I don't know your circumstances - but if you plan on or need to return to France in the near future I would get yourself to an immigration attorney right away.

Anything we would tell you would be useless.

mbre

Thanks. I haven't overstayed the visa and don't plan to. I need to go to the UK anyways, but only for a week--not the 4 weeks I'll have to stay there if I can't return to France.

PRLCH

Is a long sejour visa the same as a Category D visa? See this link where we had similar problems with a category D visa. http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...sitor-visa.cfm At the end of the day. my daughter left Schengen and returned about a week later as a visitor (90 day rule) without any problems.

Christina

It sounds like the problem is that you want to go and come back within the time period of the visa you already have, right? So I can understand why that wouldn't give you 90 more days. But if your current visa expired and you left France, certainly you would be allowed to come back as a tourist without a visa some time, after all. So it sounds like the sticky point in that case might be how long you have to have gone before you can start anew as a tourist.

This would be the same issue for anyone, I would think -- if you were there 89 days as a tourist, then left, then came back in one day, would you get 90 more days? That would be too easy, you could live there forever that way. I believe it is a max of 90 days per 6 months. So I would think your visa would work the same way, you are allowed to be there a total of so many days in a given period, and you can't just get 90 more by leaving for one day. So I believe the second consulate, but it does only matter who is checking you if you try to come back and what they think.

mbre

PRLCH - Yes it is also a type D, but I didn't have get a carte de sejour. I couldn't figure out if your daughter had a student visa or just a long stay visa? This seems to be the key sticking point. The one consulate said that my long stay visa counted as tourism, and thus that I wouldn't be able to get the regular 90 days since my long stay was considered to have already used up that time.

Alec

<I> The other consulate said this is not possible and that my long sejour visa counts as consuming my 90 days as a tourist. According to them, it would only work if I had a student or employment visa.</I>

I would go along with this advice rather than the other, as it's more logical (i.e. you are returning in a different immigration category, a visitor, and not trying to extend your stay through a visa-run).

mbre

Alec, thanks for your response. Just to clarify, you think that I would not be allowed back into France?

Alec

That is a possibility, but not certain, as French border officials in my experience seem to vary a lot in how strictly they impose the rule. They are usually easy-going and don't scrutinise US(?) passport, but you may just be unlucky in meeting a fastidious officer.

mbre

Just to update, it seems that the consulates are really not informed to answer this question, since all they do is issue visa. Someone at the San Francisco consulate talked with the French immigration/border people and confirmed that you can return to France as a Schengen visitor even after having a visa for more than 90 days.