Three Days at the Prefecture

My carte de séjour (something like a French green card) expires on Saturday. Hmm, in fact, that's not true--the proof that I have applied for a carte de séjour expires on Saturday, because they haven't made the actual carte de séjour in the six months after I applied for it. (I've already had to renew it once before, and it was very quick--a trip to the Prefecture, and they stamped the back of my receipt for 3 more valid months.) I woke up early on Wednesday and drove in to the Prefecture and waited in line for about a half an hour before a worker announced that they weren't giving any more tickets out and that we should all go home. A bit disappointed, I went to work and set my alarm clock earlier for the next day.

Thursday morning I woke up and drove to the Prefecture--again. I waited in line--again. But this time I waited for two hours before the same worker announced that she wasn't giving out any more tickets. I decided to try my chances at the front desk, even though I knew I wouldn't receive a ticket--but then, I thought that I didn't need a ticket, because the last time they had renewed it with the crunch of a stamp. However, the woman behind the desk (the same one who had told us all to go home) told me that I would have to come back on Monday with all of my papers and they would make me a new receipt. ("But last time you just stamped it," I said. "I don't do that anymore," she answered.) After two and a half hours on my feet, surrounded by screaming babies, line cutters, and innumerable foreign languages, I had accomplished nothing, and I no longer had the right to work. I made it to the car before I started bawling.

When I say I bawled, I want you to know that I didn't cry. I cry a lot. The first question my mother asked me when I wore contact lenses for the first time was whether they hurt when I cried. I once cried in front of the family because Jube read me a local newspaper article about a little dog who had been poisoned by some mean hoodlum. I even cried when I first came to Nice and realized that it's not the same city as Montpellier. I say this because the tears that came out of my body on Thursday were not the same as my normal drizzle. I sobbed and screamed and had to use lots of tissues before I could leave the parking lot at the Prefecture.

Now that I read my depiction of the Prefecture, my breakdown doesn't seem very merited. You have to understand--the section for the "foreigners" is all the way at the back, like a cave, filled with red metal chairs and a long, long, never-ending line that starts at a desk set in the back of the cave with a door behind it. Postulants from the line go up to the desk, and the Women (I don't know why the workers are primarily women, but they are) receive each immigrant like he is a 3-year old child who has some unreasonable request that is basically impossible to fulfill, but maybe, just maybe, if he has all of the required papers, She can give him a ticket and he can go sit in a red metal chair and wait for another hour before another Woman looks at his papers again and gives him another paper in exchange--and suddenly, he can work. While you're in line, you have to stand as close as possible to the person in front of you, or someone will try to cut (I've seen it happen). Everyone smells bad after about a half an hour because of the close conditions, and because the cave is kept at a very high temperature. Since no one knows how long the process will take, most immigrant women come with their children, who scream and cry and run around the cave. Sometimes the Women disappear behind their door for fifteen minutes at a time. The line moves around while we talk to each other, wondering if the Woman will come back, or if she's preparing to tell us all to leave.

I went back to the Prefecture today, with Jube, hoping that we could figure out exactly why my request was refused. Basically, there are now new laws concerning immigrants, one of which concerns the stamping of the receipts. This is now verboten, and so everyone whose papers take a long time--that means everyone--needs to come back and have a new receipt printed off for them. For that, we need a ticket. To get a ticket, we need to arrive (at the latest) at 8:00am, an hour before the Prefecture opens. And that's why I cried.

The most touching moment at the Prefecture: An old Moroccan man interrupts me while I'm reading a book. "Mademoiselle, would you mind filling in this paper for me?" I don't understand why he's asking me, exactly, but I explain that the paper is really easy--he just needs to write his name, date of birth, and nationality and then sign it. "But Mademoiselle," he says to me with a little smile, "I don't know how to write." I fill in the short form and show him where to sign. He thanks me profusely and heads off to another part of the Prefecture. The young man behind me catches my eye, and we smile together--a brief smile before we are sucked back into the stress of waiting.

The most bizarre moment at the Prefecture: While I'm sitting on a red metal chair and gazing blankly in front of me, a young man pushes past me and approaches Jube. I can't hear what they're saying to each other, but I notice that the seat of the young man's blue jeans are full of fashionable holes. I look up at Jube's face in time to hear him say, "Oui, j'ai compris"--"Yes, I understand." The young man scowls and then stalks to the back of the line. "What was that?" I ask Jube. "He told me that if I didn't let his girlfriend go in front of us, he would give me a knuckle sandwich!" he responded incredulously.