The French Consulate In Algeria Resumes Its Activity Pending Visa Files

The French General Consulate in Algeria announced the resumption of part of its activities since the June,1st, provided that those concerned are received through appointments and respecting health conditions, in a step that may pave the way for the return of visa files in the coming weeks.

A statement of the French General Consulate stated that the activities concerned are the civil cases, which includes the birth declaration and the appointment that is obtained by sending an email, and the activity of nationality services, permission to marry, and the appointment will also be obtained via sending an email.

“The services of the passports at the consulate and the national identification card, whether for French or Algerian nationals, will also be concerned with the resumption of the activity and will be handed over to their owners exclusively through special summons from the general consulate, and it is only related to documents that were deposited by their owners before March 17”, it added.

“Activities of the election services and the certificate of residence change will also be resumed, and this is also done via e-mail. People who apply without an appointment from the general consulate will not be received by the concerned departments, and the owners of appointments must wear a face mask and respect the health conditions and rules once they enter the consulate’s headquarters”.

“The rest of the services of the French General Consulate in Algeria remain closed to this day, that is, the services of depositing visa applications and retrieving passports, which were suspended in the middle of last March, but the partial resumption of the important activities of the french general consulate in Algeria, may pave the way for the future to resume the rest of the activities, especially that the announcement gave the impression that the resumption of activities would be partial”.

“After suspending its activities last March, the French General Consulate in Algeria stated at the time that those who had their visa deposit dates cancelled would benefit from a complete cancellation of fees during the next filing date, while those who had started processing their files by the general consul before suspending the services, they will be contacted by the VFS Global filing centre to receive their passports, following established procedures”.

“As for the owners of visa files that the general consul was unable to begin processing, the consulate is obliged to return the files to their owners, according to the same statement, for short-term visa applications, and with them, the passport that does not have any stamp, as the concerned will be contacted by the VFS Global centre in the coming days to explain how to return the files to their owners”.

Concerning this category, the statement explains that, when the consular services resume their activity again, they can request benefit from cancelling the fees to deposit their file again, while submitting the file’s receipt that has not been processed, and the VFS Global Center will provide procedural facilities to set a new appointment to deposit the visa application file.

The same statement indicated that people who are currently on French soil and have a short-term visa, can, according to justified cases, benefit from the extension of the short-stay visa for a maximum period of 90 days, or a temporary residence permit for 3 months, explaining that these are called to come close to the department headquarters where they are located.