Caroline Baudry, edited by Laura Laplaud 07:07, December 08, 2022

Anticipate!

This is the new watchword of the ANTS, the National Agency for Secure Documents, in the face of the congestion of their services.

With an average waiting time of 65 days, some French people are forced to travel several hundred kilometers to obtain their papers.

"This year, I had to connect a dozen times, I never found a slot".

Twelve months that Chloé, Parisian, is looking for an appointment on her computer.

The one that would allow him to renew his outdated identity card… Even if it means moving away a bit.

"Even in Brittany, even in Rennes, there's nothing, I'm not going to go as far as Marseilles either to get an identity card again! You shouldn't exaggerate either, I still haven't of date, at one point, it's demotivating", she exclaims at the microphone of Europe 1.

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

50 days of waiting on average

While the objective is a waiting period of 30 days, it takes 50 days on average in France to obtain an appointment.

It was 90 days at worst.

Consequently, many French people travel hundreds of kilometers to leave their fingerprints in a town hall or prefecture that is not saturated.  

In Paris, in the discreet premises of the national agency for secure titles, director Anne-Gaëlle Baudouin ensures that she takes the lead.

According to her, this traffic jam is linked in particular to an increase in requests for identity documents.

"In 2022, there is a 20% increase in demand compared to 2019, before the Covid. In the procedures, you are now asked to have a valid identity document, this was not necessarily the case before,” she explains.

20 million euros mobilized in 2023

Despite the emergency plan of 14 million euros deployed this summer, and a slight improvement, getting an appointment is still a real headache.

The agency, which comes under the Ministry of the Interior, is launching a search engine to list the appointments available in France, to renew passports and national identity cards. 

In 2023, 20 million euros will be mobilized to help municipalities install new counters.

In the meantime, she recalls that titles expired for less than five years are accepted to take exams and the driving license.