Traveling without my French Resident Card

The photo is one of my passport pages. As you can see, the French don’t really care whether there’s “room” for a new stamp. 🙂

So in an earlier post I shared that I had been pickpocketed late last year and hence no longer had my physical four year Carte de Sejour, which was perhaps the hardest-earned French document in my possession. In that same article I noted that it really wasn’t such an important document in terms of daily life in France, and after this most recent theft, I had a number of trips in which an EU residence card had no relevance: visits to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, Italy, then Bulgaria. However, then a little thing called lockdown happened and when we were finally deconfined, the EU residence card took on a new meaning. I knew in the back of my mind that I should have some kind of replacement document, but knowing that I was putting in for my ten year card quite soon led me to rely on my confidence on how the system worked and my inherent knowledge of and patience with French immigration.

First flight back

The end of July saw me at the Aer Lingus counter in Chicago, following a whirlwind three-week trip to the US which I took because of a convergence of very low airfares and the possibility of doing some work with a client as well as on one of my business projects. I’d also get some family time. I was tired, but the accomplished-a-lot-and-feeling-good kind of tired. The agent at the counter asked for my passport and then she…