Romain Rouillard / Photo credits: AFP 17:52 p.m., April 25, 2023

Getting a new passport or renewing your ID can take on the appearance of an obstacle course in recent months. Wait times to get an appointment are at an all-time high while summer vacation is fast approaching. For its part, the government promises to act.

A little more than 60 days before the start of the summer holidays, anxiety is beginning to win over the French whose identity papers are expiring. Because for many months, the time needed to renew them has exploded. "It takes six months to find an appointment, there is a real problem!" says a retiree at the microphone of Europe 1. "This is the end of an ordeal. It took me eight months to get an identity card," said Ariane as she left the town hall of the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A very uncomfortable situation that can be explained by taking into account several parameters.

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The first comes directly from across the Channel. Since the entry into force of Brexit on 31 January 2020, it is mandatory to have a valid passport to travel to the United Kingdom, with the exception of the Island of Jersey. Enough to explode the number of requests to town hall. Civil registration services forecast 14.5 million in 2023 against only 9.5 million in 2019, the government said in early November. In addition, up-to-date identity documents are now required from some telephone operators, banks but also on online sports betting sites.

Not all municipalities have the required equipment

To meet this increase in demand, the State has worked on new devices to facilitate procedures and reduce waiting times. Among them, the website rendezvouspasseport.ants.gouv.fr which lists all available slots within a radius of 20, 40 and 60 kilometers. But to complete the procedure, the town hall must imperatively be equipped with a small box to collect the applicant's fingerprints. A device generalized since March 28, 2017 but which has not yet invested all the town halls of the Hexagon. In the Oise, for example, only 30 are equipped with them while the department has 679 municipalities.

Town halls must have this type of box to renew an identity
document Photo credits: FREDERIC SCHEIBER / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP

In addition, many municipalities are simply not connected to the platform offering applicants visibility on the slots available near their homes. On a trip to the Indre last week, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne promised to act on this point and to connect all small municipalities to the national appointment site. "The goal is for all French people to have an overview of the appointments that are available," she explained at a press briefing. In this way, the head of government intends to halve the waiting time by the summer.

650 additional borrow collection terminals

Finally, the head of government announced the deployment of 650 terminals for collecting additional loans "targeting particularly the 30 departments in which we currently see delays (too long) or difficulties". Promises that follow those of Dominique Faure, Minister Delegate for Local Authorities, who announced in mid-January the opening of 500 new counters to allow more town halls to receive applications for titles.

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While waiting for the arrival of these additional technical means, the government suggests that applicants fill out an online pre-application. A necessary procedure in order to speed up the processing of his file and, by extension, the making of appointments.