In the vast majority of French prefectures, online appointment booking has become widespread, in the name of administrative simplification. But, in practice, the procedure has become almost impossible since on most official websites, at the fateful moment, the following message appears: "There is no longer a free time slot for your appointment request. Please try again later ". Some people therefore take months, or even longer, before obtaining a niche, which is essential for them.

Many foreigners wishing to regularize their situation or renew their residence permit thus find themselves caught in a Kafkaesque administrative process. Sometimes, failing to obtain an appointment within the allotted time, they remain without papers, automatically falling into an irregular situation. They then run the risk of arrest, then being locked up in an administrative detention center. This is the case of Idrissa, 33, finally returned to Senegal after eight years in France.

Full-time work and the parallel market

Others spend whole nights watching for the opening of new time slots on the site of their prefecture, in order to be the first to register and get the precious sesame. We followed Patrice, 42, during his first meeting at the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture, torn off after nearly a year of waiting. This Ivorian is very moved to live this first stage with a view to its possible regularization.

Often, this IT watch to get an appointment is like a full-time job. A parallel market has even been set up: for a fee, individuals offer services for the resale of precious appointments in the prefecture. The cost can range from ten to a hundred euros. We went to meet them, but we found that the small business of these amateur traffickers is far from being lucrative ... Yet it is they who blame the French authorities to justify the failures of the online appointment system. .

For several years now, the prefectures have been victims of budget cuts which have hampered their proper functioning, while the applications for residence permits have been piling up. For users, administrative procedures are made particularly dissuasive.

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