The misery of French Bureaucracy

French bureaucracy is a Russian doll. Every time you think you’ve reached the finish line, SURPRISE, you unlock another section of the race track.

I’ve just woken up, it’s 4 am and I’m anxious wreck. I can’t quite remember my dream but I have niggling feeling it involves a préfecture… I try to soothe myself back to sleep but my mind keeps wandering to the sécu social I need to sort out, to the micro entreprise I need to create. I’m in an expat admin nightmare.  

I admit that I lulled myself into a false sense of security. I had the arrogance to think that because I grew up in France and I speak french fluently, that I wouldn’t require the “Strictly Fiscal France” Facebook group. I assumed that I wouldn’t need to trawl through Reddit sub threads to understand my visa code. Now I hold my hands up, j’ai de l’oeuf sur le visage, I know nothing. 

French bureaucracy is a Russian doll. That is the best way I can describe it. Every time you think you’ve reached the finish line, SURPRISE, you unlock another section of the race track. If the prefecture had an anthem it would be “It ain’t over til it’s over” by Lenny Kravitz. The first part was easy. From the