France to Implement Emergency Plan Aimed At Improving Delivery Times for Passports & National ID Cards
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Loading... - Tamara Fink
- 05 May 2022
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The French Ministry of Interior has announced that the country’s responsible authorities have presented to the Council of Ministers a communication on the implementation of an emergency plan that aims to improve passports and national cards’ delivery times.
According to the Ministry, such a decision has been taken after considering the increase in requests, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
It has been explained that the number of persons wanting to renew their documents has increased mainly due to the removal of restrictions. The majority of French nationals have been renewing their passports and national identity cards for travel purposes.
“Since the end of 2021, requests for new titles or their renewal have experienced an unprecedented increase compared to 2021, under the effect of the gradual exit from the pandemic, which has led many French people to take steps to renew their national identity card or passport for personal or professional travel,” the statement of the Ministry reads.
Due to the high number of requests, some municipalities in France had an average waiting time of 65 days at the end of April. In some other departments, the waiting times can exceed 100 days.
After taking into account such figures, the French authorities decided to initiate an emergency plan. In line with the new plan, the Ministry has revealed that in order to multiply time slots for appointments, 400 new systems used for collecting title applications will be installed within a month. The new systems will be of great benefit to municipalities that have particularly high demands.
Except for the above-mentioned, the French authorities are also planning to optimise ticket services and extend the opening hours.
It has been highlighted that requests of French nationals who have no identity documents as well requests of those who need to immediately travel outside the country for family or health purposes, among others, will have priority.
The optimisation effort also includes more systematic use of online pre-applications on the website of the National Agency for Secured Documents.
“The State will also support the deployment of new departmental platforms for making appointments so that the slots offered can be managed more efficiently, in particular by avoiding multiple reservations for the same request,” the Ministry added.
Apart from the above-mentioned, the Ministry explained that the government would also offer financial support. Read More...
