Faced with the extended deadlines for obtaining a passport, the Minister for Communities explains that it is an increase in the number of requests. The “true from false” verified this statement.
Check your documents carefully before “last minute” trips. If your passport or your identity card has expired, it is indeed now that you have to go about renewing them, because it takes three months on average for all the procedures in France. It’s much longer than before the Covid.
>> Passport and identity card: delays still too long
The Minister of Local Authorities Dominique Faure gave an explanation on franceinfo this Tuesday, April 26: “We are facing an increase in applicants. We were at around 9 million requests in 2019, we rose to 12 million in 2022, and we are currently at a rate of 15 million”she says.
Indeed, these are the good figures: there are an average of 300,000 meetings at the town hall per week, compared to 200,000 last year.
Several reasons for the increase in requests
The Ministry of the Interior gives several explanations. First, there is still the effect of the health crisis: some French people have postponed their trips to this year. Another reason, Brexit: since 2021, you need a passport to spend a weekend in London, for example. Finally, presenting an up-to-date identity card has become essential in certain cases: some telephone operators require it to open a mobile plan, or to prove that you are over 18 on online betting sites.
These extended delays concern all regions, but especially the West of France, which has gained a lot of inhabitants in recent years. The ministry ensures that it makes sure to increase the number of slots in town hall, by financing the overtime of their agents. But the places available are increasing more slowly than the number of requests (40% against 60%).
Another measure: equip more town halls to make appointments. For this, they must be equipped with biometric boxes to collect fingerprints. But they have to be connected to a secure line and have Orange technicians come to the site, which takes time. If 2,500 municipalities are equipped with these boxes, the government is aiming for around 3,000 municipalities equipped this summer. The objective is still to compress the deadlines for this summer and to go from 93 days to 50 days to renew your passport or identity card.