Rita started the day well by collecting the key for the gymnasium where Dindi Moon will be practicing. She then checked at the house to see if her birth certificate had arrived from Bern, but no luck. In the early afternoon, we then headed over to Montauban for our Prefecture interview. While we were waiting for the Prefecture to open for the afternnon, Rita rang Bern to enquire about her birth certificate, only to be told that it hadn’t been sent to her because she had not paid. On further investigation, they realised that they hadn’t sent her the invoice that she was supposed to pay! After much apologies, they promised to send the invoice that afternoon. So we went into the interview knowing that one thing they had asked for was not present in the documentation, but Rita had included her Swiss community documentation as a backup, so here’s hoping.

We managed to get a different officer this time around (we could hear the “nasty lady” we had a few weeks ago in the next interview booth). Our new officer seemed very quiet and calm by comparison. He slowly went through our documentation and compared it with his checklist, asking just a couple of questions along the way. When he got to the end of the pile of documents, we thought we were home and hosed. But, then he turned them all over and started again. It seemed like he was unhappy that he hadn’t found anything to complain about.

On the second way through, he queried us about three things:

1. He asked us where our Attestation was from our French Bank, Credit Agricole?  We explained that the first officer had said this was not required (when we suggested it). He could have leaned around the partition wall and asked her if that is what she said, but I suspect he didn’t want to confront her, so he just told us again that we needed it.

2. He also said we needed to get the letter from our accountant translated into French. We asked if we could translate it, given Rita’s knowledge of French, but he said “Non”, it had to be done by an accredited translator approved of by the Prefecture. He then gave us contact details for a local English-French translator - sounds like a nice arrangement for some easy money for the translator!

3. He then looked at the Policy that had been sent to us by the Travel/Health Insurer (for which we had to pay premium rates because we had already left Australia). He wasn’t satisfied with what they had sent, and asked if there was any more policy detail descriptions. I explained that there was a detailed Product Disclosure Statement in English, and he then said that we would have to get that translated as well (all 60 pages of fine-print).

At this stage I was about to get up and just leave the interview, and then leave France ASAP. It all seemed like the whole system was a giant make-work scheme, where each officer would ensure they had a different interpretation of what was required, where you never saw the same officer twice (so that they wouldn’t have to contradict themselves), and where the Prefecture officers got a kick-back from the translators in return for them sending lots of work their way. Of course, I realised this was just a reaction to getting knocked back again, and Rita raised the very good point that I should compare what happened at the Prefecture with what the Australian government continues to do to asylum-seekers in Australia, ignoring UN rules for asylum seekers, continually changing the rules, and keeping them in indefinite detention on a ramshackle island (for 5-6 years so far). It took me a while to calm down, but I realised in which situation I would prefer to be.

Since we were in Montauban, we took the opportunity to visit the SFR shop (the nearest now that the Moissac SFR store has closed). Rita wanted to checked out some strange (repeated) calls she had been getting from Paris from someone claiming to be from SFR who wanted to check her account details. Suspecting it was a spam call, she refused to provide them with the details over the phone. The SFR staff checked the number, and confirmed that it was an SFR number and probably from their Market Research call centre. Strange, since the caller seemed very unprofessional and decidedly dodgy.

When we got home, we heard that there was a "code orange” thunderstorm headed our way, and a few hours later it arrived with heavy rain and wind. But it cleared up around 8pm, and a little while later we heard a knock on the door and were greeted by Stuart & Christine who had arrived back in Moissac today. We had a good chat and unloaded our Prefecture tales of woe onto them. At least it made us feel better!!

Today is one of those rare days when there are no photos on this page; but I really wasn’t in the mood for taking photos!