Julia Frey

How do you say “Catch 22” in French?

My husband and I need French permis de conduire (driver’s licenses). Makes me nervous. French paperasserie (red tape) is notorious. Of course, bureaucracy has a bad rep everywhere. Lately Le Monde discussed the nightmare of trying to pay a fine in Russia. And we won’t even mention the U.S. Immigration Service. Besides, what am I afraid of? A recent sondage (poll) says “73.2 pour cent (%) des Français” are proud of their fonctionnaires. The five to six million employées of la fonction publique (literally: public functioning), who represent 20 to 25% of the working population of France, are a class act. Civil servants run all government agencies, from la Poste (the post office) to the Elysée Palace, including hospitals and l’Education Nationale. Access to these jobs is exclusively by competitive exam and includes lifetime job security. The French consider this le rêve (a dream job).

Still, it’s a love-hate relationship (“je t’aime moi non plus”). Look up bureaucratie in Robert’s Dictionnaire. First definition: “l’influence abusive de l’administration” (misuse of official power). Napoléon’s improvement on the centralized administration inaugurated by Louis XIV’s finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, was to give local prefects executive power, thereby attaching the hands of petty bureaucrats to the long arm of the nation. Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929), twice prime minister, noted humorously, “France is an extremely fertile country: If you plant fonctionnaires, what grows is taxes”. He further commented, “Fonctionnaires are like books in a bookcase. It’s the ones on the top shelf that get the least use”. Maybe that’s why fonctionnaires are called ronds de cuir (literally, rounds of leather). A rond de cuir is a cushion shaped like an inner tube, for people who’ve developed hemorrhoids from sitting too long.

But back to our driver’s licenses. First stop, la gendarmerie (police station), where a smiling fonctionnaire leans toward us conspiratorially. “Don’t get a permis de conduire”, she says. “Just use your foreign one. We don’t give traffic points to non-French licenses”. I’m astonished to hear an official suggest using the “système D” (for débrouillard — i.e. finding a clever, but unofficial way around a problem). But what if we have an accident? Answer: The insurance wouldn’t pay. So we’re off to thesous-préfecture for licenses, bringing the required papiers: passports, photos, current driver’s licenses, birth certificates, andpreuves de domicile (proof of address).

It’s a little like the supermarché fish counter: take a number, faire la queue (wait in line). Our turn finally comes. Thefonctionnaire just needs to verify la réciprocité. Quoi ? Since there’s no national U.S. driver’s license, France requires a separate reciprocity agreement with each state. Only some states have them. Auguste has a New Jersey license. New Jerseyn’est pas sur la liste.

“So what should I do?” he asks.

“You have to go to driving school”, she says, “then pass a driving test”.

“But I passed my test in Holland when I was 18 years old”.

“Why didn’t you say so? France has réciprocité with les Pays-Bas”.

Auguste tossed his expired Dutch license years ago. Pas de (pro) blème. Just ask Dutch authorities to document you’ve had a license. At gendarmerie, declare license lost. At préfecture provide documentation and declaration, plus self-addressed, stamped envelope. Eventually you’ll get French license.

My turn. Colorado has réciprocité. Extra (extraordinaire, great) ! I sail through, pocketing temporary license and providing SASE. Envelope arrives—no license. Inside, letter requesting copy of my titre de séjour (long-stay visa). Wait a minute! As the non-working wife of a European, legally I don’t need a visa. But in l’administration, sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. The legislation is complicated, and fonctionnaires famously devise information au pif (by nose, i.e., by the seat of their pants), or worse, à la tête du client (depending on whether they like your face) Four email exchanges, five trips to the wrong offices, and no official can help me out. Everyone says something different. C’est Kafkaïen (Kafkaesque). Finally they insist I get a visa anyway. Want to say “Catch 22” in French? Try cercle vicieux or situation inextricable.

I wait for hours outside the préfecture for a chance at one of the 49 daily appointments to apply for long-term visas. The 293 people behind me in line don’t get one. I show the fonctionnaire all the required papiers. “Mais où est votre mari ?” My husband? I didn’t bring him—“Il n’est pas sur la liste !”

If you can’t fight city hall, make fun of it. In Paris as I write, not one but two comedies mock civil servants: one about afonctionnaire who wants to organize a general strike so he can go to a soccer game, the other a revival of Georges Courteline’s 1911 play Messieurs les Ronds-de-Cuir.